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LETTERS 


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JUNIUS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/juniusincludingl01 


JUNIUS: 

INCLUDING 

letters!  op  tfje  0ame  CCOrite*, 

UjYDER  other  signatures, 

(NOW  FIRST  COLLECTED.) 
TO   WHICH  ARE   ADDED, 

HIS  CONFIDENTIAL  CORRESPONDENCE 

WITH 

MR.  WILKES. 

AND   HIS 

PRIVATE   LETTERS 

ADDRESSED  TO 

MR.  H.  S.  WOODFALL. 

WITH 

A  Preliminary  Essay,  Notes,  Fac-Similes,  65c. 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


STAT  NO  MINIS  UMBRA. 

\v\wwv\w\  -w\  -w\ 


PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED  BY  BRADFORD  AND  INSKEEP; 

AND 

INSKEEP  AND  BRADFORD,  NEW-YORK. 

"William  Fry,  Printer. 

1813 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


VOL.1. 


PAGE, 

ADVERTISEMENT ix 

PRELIMINARY  ESSAY »1 

Mr.  Burke's  opinion  of  Junius,  note #4 

Lord  North's ib. 

Story  of  the  late  Duke  of  Richmond  and  W.  G.  Hamilton,  note  *7 
Opinion  of  the  style  of  Junius  by  a  contemporary  hostile  writer, 

note .*    .     .    .     *56 

Persons  to  whom  the  letters  have  been  attributed *61 

On  the  pretensions  of  Mr.  Charles  Lloyd *62 

______ John  Roberts ib. 

————— Samuel  Dyer ib. 

The  Rt.  Hon.  Edm.  Burke *6S 

Extracts  from  Mr.  Burke's  speech  on  American  taxation  .  .  *64 
On  the  pretensions  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  W.  G.  Hamilton  ....  *72 
Extracts  from  Mr.  Malone's  Preface  to  Parliamentary  Logic, 

in  disproof  that  Hamilton  was  the  writer  of  Junius     .     .    .    ib. 
On  the  pretensions  of  Dr.  Butler,  bishop  of  Hereford  .     .     .     .     *74 
the  Rev.  Philip  Rosenhagen *75 

■  General  Charles  Lee ib. 

Extracts  from  General  Lee's  Letters .     *gj 

On  the  pretensions  of  Mr.  Wilkes *82 

■  Mr.  Hugh  Macauley  Boyd *83 

Mr.  Dunning,  afterwards  Lord  Ashburton    *96 

Henry  Flood,  Esq.  M.  P.  of  Ireland    .     .     *97 

Extracts  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Flood *9g 

On  the  pretensions  of  Lord  George  Sackville »99 

PRIVATE  LETTERS  addressed  to  Mr.   H.  S.  Woodfau,  by 

Junius *10l 

Middlesex  Petition  to  the  King,  note *lQ4 

City  of  London — — ,  note *109 

Lord  Holland's  Letter  to  the  Lord  Mayor,  (Mr.  Beckford)  note  *111 

Mr.  Beckford's  answer  to  the  foregoing,  note ib. 

Letter  to  a  Liveryman,  being  a  further  answer  to 

Lord  Holland's  Letter,  note *112 

Lord  Holland's  Letter  to  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  in  vindication  of 

himself  against  the  charge  in  the  city  petition,  of  being  "  the 

public  defaulter  of  unaccounted  millions,"  note *1JJ 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

History  of  the  dispute  between  the  Rt.  Hon.  George  Onslow, 
now  Lord  Onslow,  and  Mr.  Home,  afterwards  Mr.  Tooke, 

note *H6 

Remonstrance  of  the  city  of  Westminster,  note *1S1 

Letter  to  Lord  North,  signed  Brutus,  note *138 

Conclusion  of  a  Letter  from  Mr.  Wilkes  to  Mr.  Home,  note     .  *149 

Letter  from  Junius  to  Mr.  David  Garrick *143 

Mr.   Wilkes's  reply  to  Mr.    Home,  and   compliments  to  the 

genius  of  Mr.  Garrick,  note *144 

Case  of  Meares  and  Shepley  against  Ansell,  note *150 

PRIVATE    CORRESPONDENCE    between    Junius    and  Mr. 

Wilkes M63 

Copy  of  the  resolutions  of  the  Supporters  of  the  Bill  of  Rights, 

note *174 

Extracts  from  Mr.  Wilkes's  Letter  to  the  Livery  of  London,  in 
defence  of  himself  from  an  attack  made  on  him  byMr.Towns- 

hend,  note *200 

Extract  from  Messrs.  Wilkes  and  Bull's  address  to  the  Livery 
on  employing  the  military  under  the  pretence  of  assisting  the 

civil  power,  note *201 

jUNIUS's  Dedication  to  the  English  Nation 1 

Preface 7 

Woodfall's  Case,  note 19 

letter  i.  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 31 

ii.  Sir  Wm.  Draper's  answer  to  the  foregoing  letter  of  Junius, 

addressed  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 40 

Short  Sketch  of  Sir  William  Draper's  character,  note     ...  44 

in.  Junius  to  Sir  William  Draper 45 

Corsica  reduced  by  the  French,  note 46 

iv.  Sir  Wm.  Draper  to  Junius 59 

-            Neodes,  note 51 

the  Ghost,  note ib. 

Titus  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A.  note 53 

v.  Junius  to  Sir  Wm.  Diaper 60 

vi.  Sir  Wm.  Draper  to  Junius 62 

vii.  Junius  to  Sir  Wm.  Draper 63 

Sir  Wm.  Draper  to  the  Printer,  note 64 

viii.  Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 68 

Sir  Wm.  Draper  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A.  note 67 

ix.  Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 74 

x. Mr.  Edward  Weston 77 

Crito ,  note ib. 

XI.  Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Gi •  fton 79 

Conclusion  of  Lord  Mansfield's  speech  on  the  reversal  of  Mr. 

Wilkes's  Outlawry,  note    .     .          . 80 

Proceedings  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  expelling  Mr.  Wilkes, 

note 3 


CONTENTS.  vii 

LETTER  PAGE 

xii.     Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 87 

Short  sketch  of  the  Duke's  political  life  to  the  date  of  this 

Letter,  note ...    90 

xii.    Statement  of  American  politics  at  this  period,  note     ...     92 

xiii.    Philo  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 96 

xiv. 98 

xv.     Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 103 

xvi. Printer  of  the  P.  A 108 

Statement  of  Mr.  Walpole's  expulsion  from  the  H.  of  C., 

notes 111—112 

xvii.  Philo  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 114 

G.  A.  to  the  Printer  of  tfie  P.  A.  on  Wilkes's  expulsion,  note  ib. 
A  speech  without  doors,  (Sir  Wm  Blackstone's)  on  the  same, 

note 115 

Xviii.  Junius  to  Dr.  Wm.  Blackstone 120 

six.    Philo  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 126 

Publius  to  Junius,  in  defence  of  Dr.  B. extracted  from  the  St. 

James's  Chronicle,  note ib. 

xx.     Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 133 

Philo  Junius ,  note      ..*....  136 

xxi.    Junius 140 

xxn    Philo  Junius 141 

XXIII.  Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford 145 

On  the  unpopular  peace  of  1763,  and  anecdote  of  the  Duke, 

notes 145 — 151 

On  the  contest  for  mayor,  &c.  for  Bedford,  note      ....  148 

XXiv.  Sir  W.  Draper  to  Junius 155 

xxv    Junius  to  Sir  W.  Draper 157 

xxvi    Sir  W.  Draper  to  Junius 159 

xxvii.  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 163 

Sir  W.  D.  in  explanation  of  his  voyage  to  America,  note       .  ib. 
M.  Tullius  in  defence  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  note     .     .     .  166 

xxvm.  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  PA 170 

xxix.   Philo  Junius .     .     .  171 

xxx.  Junius 175 

General  Gansel's  case,  and  brigade  order  in  consequence  of 

it,  note 176 

xxxi.  Philo  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 181 

xxxn.  Junius ■ 184 

xxxiii. to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 185 

xxxiv. 187 

Justice  to  the  Printer  of  the  P   A.  in  defence  of  the  D.  of  G. 
on  the  gift  of  the  patent  place  to  Col.  Burgoyne,  note     .     .  18S 
Xxxv.  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A.  being  the  address  to  the 

King 190 

On  Woodfall's  trial  for  publishing  this  letter,  note    ....  191 


viii  CONTENTS. 

Wilkes's  address  to  the  King,  imploring  pardon,  note     .    .  206 
xxxv.    Wilkes's  petition  to  the  King,  to  the  same  effect,  note    .    .  206 

xxxvi.  Junius  to  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Grafton 208 

■cxxvu.  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 217* 

Address,  remonstrance,  and  petition  of  the  city  of  London 

to  the  King,  note ib. 

His  Majesty's  answer  to  the  foregoing,  note 219 

Joint  address  of  Lords  and  Commons  reprobating  the  city 

address,  note 220 

His  Majesty's  answer  to  the  same 221 

Another  address,  remonstrance,  &c.  from  the  city,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  preceding,  note 222 

His  Majesty's  answer  to  it,  note 223 

-  The  Lord  Mayor's  (Beckford)  reply  to  his  Majesty's  answer, 

note ib. 

Lord  Barrington's  letter  to  Mr.  Justice  Ponton,  note      .      .  226 
Mr.  Dunning's  letter  to  the  Chamberlain  of  London,  on  re- 
ceiving the  freedom  of  the  city,  note 22f 

i-xxviii.  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 229 

xxxix. ■ 235 

Octennial  act  of  the  Irish  parliament,  note 243 

Origin  of  the  dispute  with  America,  note ib. 

Failure  of  the  plan  to  reduce  the  four  per  cents.,  note     .     .  ib. 

Case  of  Matthew  and  Patrick  Kennedy,  note 24? 

XL.     Junius  to  Lord  North ib. 

Intelligence  Extraordinary. — Resignation  of  Colonel  Lut- 
trell,  who  had  been  appointed  adjutant-general  in  Ireland, 

note 250 

x"li.    To  the  Rt.  Hon.  Lord  Mansfield 251 

Lord  Mansfield. — Explanation  of  the  story  of  his  having 

drank  the  Pretender's  health  upon  his  knees,  note      .      .  252 
Judge  Yates. — Anecdote  of  him,  note      .     .      .....  254 

xu.     Bingley. — Further  account  of  his  discharge  from  prison, 

note 256 

Libels. — Unsuccessful  attempt  to  bring  in  an  Enacting  Bill 

to  enable  juries  to  try  the  whole  issue,  note 25" 

Mr.  Fox  more  successful  at  a  subsequent  period,  note    .     .  259 

•vLU.    Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 265 

Dr.  Johnson. — Extracts  from  his  "Thoughts  on  the  late 

transactions  respecting  Falkland's  Islands,"  note.    .      272,  273 
Letter  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A.  on  the  subject  of  a  cancel 

in  the  foregoing  pamphlet 275 

xliii.  Philo  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A 273 

Philo  Junius  to  the  Printer  of  the  P.  A.,  note 279 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


THE  present  edition  contains,  besides  the  letters  published 
by  authority  of  Junius  himself,  others  written  by  the  same 
author,  under  various  signatures,  which  appeared  in  the 
Public  Advertiser  from  April,  1767,  to  May,  1772,  toge- 
ther with  his  Private  Letters,  peculiarly  curious  and  inter- 
esting, addressed  to  his  printer,  the  late  Mr.  H.  S.  Wood- 
fall,  and  his  confidential  correspondence  with  Mr.  Wilkes. 
These  latter  papers  only  reached  the  proprietor's  hands 
after  a  considerable  part  of  the  work  had  been  printed  off, 
and  will  account  for  the  unavoidable  omission  of  any  notice 
of  them  in  the  Preliminary  Essay. 

It  is  in  perfect  consistency  with  the  plan  at  first  proposed 
by  .he  author,  but  which  he  was  compelled  in  some  degree 
to  depart  from,  as  remarked  in  the  Preliminary  Essay,  thai 
the  edition  now  offered  contains,  independently  of  his  more 
finished  compositions  under  the  signature  of  Junius  and 
Philo  Junius,  letters  under  other  signatures,  bearing 
nevertheless  characteristic  and  unequivocal  marks  of  pro- 
ceeding from  the  same  pen;  and  which,  though  written  per- 
haps with  more  haste  than  the  former,  exhibit  merit  enough 
to  accompany  them;  while  they  possess  no  small  portion  of 
additional  value  as  comments  upon  points  that  require 
elucidation. 

Vol.  I.  b 


x  ADVERTISEMENT. 

The  editor,  in  thus  deciding  upon  materials  which  lie 
scattered  through  what  the  author  terms  six  "  solid  folios," 
will  be  found  seldom  to  have  relied  altogether  upon  his  own 
judgment,  but  to  have  availed  himself  of  a  variety  of  minute 
clues  resulting  from  incidental  references,  or  open  acknow- 
ledgments in  the  Private  Letters;  direct  charges  of  contem- 
porary labourers  in  the  same  political  vineyard,  which  were 
not  disavowed  by  Junius  himself,  as  it  was  his  custom 
whenever  "  other  persons'  sins,"  to  adopt  his  own  language, 
were  attributed  to  him;  or  from  numerous  other  casual 
hints  both  in  the  acknowledged  and  more  palpable  Miscel- 
laneous 'Letters,  of  which  the  reader,  it  is  presumed,  will 
meet  with  instances  enough  to  satisfy  himself  as  he  proceeds. 

To  the  author's  explanatory  notes,  the  present  editor  has 
added  such  others  through  the  entire  progress  of  the  work, 
as  the  intervening  lapse  of  time  has  seemed  to  render  neces- 
sary, and  though  some  of  them  are  longer  than  he  could 
have  wished,  yet  from  the  circumstance  of  their  having  been 
written  in  answer  to  letters  from  Junius,  he  has  thought  it 
more  desirable  that  they  should  appear  in  the  form  in  which 
they  are  now  offered,  than  be  pressed  into  the  text  of  the 
work,  by  which  means  its  present  size  must  have  been  very 
considerably  extended;  and  the  plan,  as  devised  bv  the 
author,  have  been  in  some  instances  departed  from.  Many 
of  these  notes,  moreover,  selected  from  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser, will  be  found  in  themselves  extremely  curious  and 
valuable,  while  at  the  same  time  they  are  no  where  else  to  be 
met  with.  The  text  has  been  carefully  collated  with  the 
journal  in  which  the  letters  originally  appeared,  and  very 
numerous  errors  which  have  crept  into  all  the  editions,  ex- 
cept the  genuine  one  published  by  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodtall 
himself,  and  which  have  been  considerably  multiplied  in 


ADVERTISEMENT.  xi 

the  later  impressions,  have  been  carefully  corrected  or  ex- 
punged. 

The  various  fac-similes  of  the  hand-writing  of  Junius, 
which  are  executed  with  peculiar  fidelity,  have  been  selected 
from  those  parts  of  his  manuscripts  which  present  the 
greatest  diversity  of  penmanship,  though  the  differences, 
except  in  that  numbered  eight,  are  so  trifling,  that  a  hard  or 
a  soft,  a  good  or  a  bad  pen,  is  altogether  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  them.  The  papers  which  have  been  copied  for 
specimens  of  the  writing  of  Junius,  will  be  found  in  their 
due  order,  among  the  Private  Letters.  The  other  fac-similes, 
as  well  as  the  seals,  have  been  delineated  with  equal  ac- 
curacy. 

The  proprietor  feels  it  a  duty  incumbent  upon  him,  before 
he  closes  this  advertisement,  to  make  his  warmest  ac- 
knowledgments to  several  distinguished  characters  who  have 
inspected  the  papers  in  his  possession,  and  who  have  kindly 
afforded  him  much  valuable  assistance.  He  begs  more  espe- 
cially to  offer  his  sincere  thanks  to  the  eminent  person  who 
obligingly  furnished  the  specimen  of  Mr.  Burki-'s  hand- 
writing, which  will  be  found  among  the  other  fac-similes. 

To  the  gentleman  to  whom  he  stands  so  much  indebted 
for  the  very  valuable  addition  of  the  private  correspondence 
between  Junius  and  Mr.  Wit  kes,  and  which  probably  ren- 
ders the  whole  of  the  political  writings  of  the  former  com- 
plete; as  also  to  another  gentleman  who  procured  for  him  the 
note  from  Mr.  W.  G.  Hamilton,  and  who  on  various  occa- 
sions has  taken  great  pains  and  trouble  in  pointing  out 
sources  of  useful  information,  he  begs  most  particularly  to 
return  his  unfeigned  gratitude. 

To  his  more  immediate  personal  friends  for  the  warm  in- 
terest they  have  evinced  in  the  success  of  his  undertaking, 


xii  ADVERTISEMENT. 

he  feels  far  beyond  what  he  is  able  to  express.  And  he  now 
submits  these  volumes  to  the  judgment  of  the  political  and 
literary  world,  with  defrence  and  respect,  in  the  hope  that 
his  earnest  endeavours  to  present  them  for  the  first  time 
with  a  complete  and  perfect  edition  of  the  Letters,  and,  as 
far  as  may  be,  the  Political  Works,  of  Junius,  will  not  be 
wholly  unsuccessful,  and  that  he  shall  experience  the  fur- 
ther satisfaction  of  finding  it  acknowledged,  that  the  task 
has  been  at  least  impartially  executed. 

Paternoster-Row, 
July  15,  1812. 


•PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 


IT  was  not  from  personal  vanity,  but  a  fair  estimate  of  his 
own  merit,  and  the  importance  of  the  subject  on  which  he 
wrote,  that  the  author  of  the  ensuing  letters  predicted  their 
immortality.  The  matter  and  the  manner,  the  times  and 
the  talents  they  disclose,  the  popularity  which  attended 
them  at  their  outset,  the  impression  they  produced  on  the 
public  mind,  and  the  triumph  of  the  doctrines  they  inculcate, 
all  equally  concur  in  stamping  for  them  a  passport  to  the 
most  distant  posterity. 

In  their  range  these  letters  comprise  a  period  of  about 
five  years;  from  the  middle  of  1767  to  the  middle  of  1772: 
and  never  has  the  history  of  this  country,  from  its  origin  to 
the  present  hour,  exhibited  a  period  of  equal  extent  that 
more  peremptorily  demanded  the  severe,  decisive,  and 
overpowering  pen  of  such  a  writer  as  Junius.  The  storms 
and  tempests  that,  within  the  last  twenty  years,  have  shaken 
the  political  world  to  its  centre,  have  been  wider  and  more 
tremendous  in  their  operation;  but  they  have,  for  the  most 
part,  discharged  their  fury  at  a  distance.  The  constitutions 
of  other  countries  have  been  swept  away  by  thr  whirlwind; 
but  that  of  England  still  towers,  like  the  pyramids  of  Egypt, 
a  wonderful  and  immortal  fabric,  overshadowing  the  desart 
that  surrounds  it,  and  defying  the  violence  of  its  hurricanes. 
In  the  period  before  us,  however,  this  stupendous  and  beau- 
tiful fabric  itself  was  attacked,  and  trembled  to  its  founda- 
tion: a  series  of  unsuccessful  ministries  too  often  profligate 

Vol..  I.  *  A 


*2  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

and  corrupt,  and  not  unfreqnently  cunning,  rather  than  ca- 
pable; a  succession  of  weak  and  obsequious  parliaments,  and 
an  arbitrary,  though  able  chief  justice,  addicted  to  the  im- 
politic measures  of  the  cabinet,  fatally  concurred  to  confound 
the  relative  powers  of  the  state,  and  equally  to  unhinge  the 
happiness  of  the  crown  and  of  the  people;  to  frustrate  all  the 
proud  and  boasted  triumphs  of  a  glorious  war,  concluded 
but  a  few  years  before  by  an  inglorious  peace1;  to  excite 
universal  contempt  abroad,  and  universal  discord  at  home. 
Hence  France,  humiliated  as  she  was  by  her  losses  and 
defeats,  did  not  hesitate  to  invade  Corsica  in  open  defiance 
of  the  remonstrances  of  the  British  minister;  and  succeeded 
in  obtaining  possession  of  it,  whilst  Spain  dishonourably  re- 
fused to  make  good  the  ransom  she  had  agreed  to,  for  the 
restoration  of  the  capital  of  the  Philippine  Isles,  which  had 
been  saved  from  pillage  upon  this  express  stipulation.  They 
saw  the  weakness  and  distraction  of  the  English  Cabinet, 
and  had  no  reason  to  dread  the  chastisement  of  a  new  war. 
The  discontents  in  the  American  colonies,  which  a  little 
address  might  at  first  have  stifled  for  ever,  were  blown  into 
a  flame  of  open  rebellion,  by  the  impolitic  violence  of  the 
very  minister  who  was  appointed,  by  the  creation  of  a  new 
office  at  this  very  time  and  for  this  express  purpose,  to 
examine  into  the  causes  of  dissatisfaction,  and  to  redress 
the  grievances  complained  of:  while,  at  home,  the  whole 
wars  and  means  of  the  ministry,  instead  of  being  directed 
against  the  insolence  of  the  common  enemy,  were  exhausted 
against  an  individual,  who,  perhaps,  would  never  have  been 
so  greatly  distinguished,  had  not  the  ill-judged  and  contu- 
macious opposition  of  the  cabinet,  and  their  flagrant  violation 
of  the  most  sacred  and  important  principles  of  the  constitu- 
tion, in  order  to  punish  him,  raised  him  to  a  height  of  popu- 
larity seldom  attained  even  by  the  most  successful  candidates 
for  public  applause;  and  embroiled  themselves  on  his  account 
in  a  dispute  with  the  nation  at  large,  almost  amounting  to  a 

'  In  1763,  through  the  negotiation  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #3 

civil  war,  and  which,  at  length,  only  terminated  in  their 
own  utter  confusion  and  defeat1. 

It  was  at  this  period,  and  under  these  circumstances,  that 
the  ensuing  letters  successively  made  their  appearance  in  the 
Public  Advertiser,  the  most  current  newspaper  of  the  day2. 
The  classical  chastity  of  their  language,  the  exquisite  force 
and  perspicuity  of  their  argument,  the  keen  severity  of  their 
reproach,  the  extensive  information  they  evinced,  their  fear- 
less and  decisive  tone,  and,  above  all,  their  stern  and  steady 
attachment  to  the  purest  principles  of  the  constitution,  ac- 
quired for  them,  with  an  almost  electric  speed,  a  popularity 
which  no  series  of  letters  have  since  possessed,  nor  perhaps 
ever  will;  and  what  is  of  far  greater  consequence,  diffused 
among  the  body  of  the  people  a  clearer  knowledge  of  their 
constitutional  rights  than  they  had  ever  before  attained,  and 
animated  them  with  a  more  determined  spirit  to  maintain 
them  inviolate3.  Enveloped  in  the  cloud  of  a  fictitious  name, 
the  writer  of  these  philippics,  unseen  himself,  beheld  with 
secret  satisfaction,  the  vast  influence  of  his  labours,  and  en- 
joyed, though,  as  we  shall  afterwards  observe,  not  always 
without  apprehension,  the  universal  hunt  that  was  made  to 
detect  him  in  his  disguise.  He  beheld  the  people  extolling 
him,  the  court  execrating  him,  and  ministers  and  more  than 
ministers  trembling  beneath  the  lash  of  his  invisible  hand. 

It  is  by  no  means,  however,  the  intention  of  the  editor  of 
the  present  volumes  to  vindicate  the  whole  of  the  method 
pursued  by  Junius  towards  the  accomplishment  of  the  pa- 

1  In  the  language  of  Lord  Chatham,  delivered  on  May  1,  1771,  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  "  they  rendered  the  very  name  of  parliament  ridiculous, 
by  carrying'  on  a  constant  war  against  Mr.  Wilkes." 

2  They  were  generally  copied  from  the  Public  Advertiser  into  all  the 
daily  and  evening  papers. 

3  That  the  same  general  impression  was  produced  by  the  appearance 
of  these  letters  in  Parliament,  which  is  so  well  known  to  have  been  pro- 
duced out  of  it,  is  evident  from  almost  all  the  speeches  of  the  day,  if  the 
editor  had  time  to  refer  to  them.  But  the  two  following  extracts  from  a 
speech  of  Mr.  Burke  and  of  Lord  North  will,  he  presumes,  be  sufficient 
for  the  purpose.  The 


#4  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

triotic  objects  on  which  his  heart  appears  to  have  been  mo6t 
ardently  engaged.  Much  of  his  individual  sarcasm  might 
perhaps  have  been  spared  with  advantage — and  especially 
the  whole  of  his  personal  assaults  upon  the  character  and 

The  first  ensuing  is  part  of  a  speech  delivered  by  the  former  gentleman. 
"Where  then  sh:ill  we  look  for  the  origin  of  this  relaxation  of  the  laws 
and  all  government?  How  comes  this  Junius  to  have  broke  through  the 
cobwebs  of  the   law,  and  to  range  uncontrolled,  unpunished,  through  the 
land?  The  myrmidons  of  the  court  have  been  long,  and  are  still,  pursuing 
liim  in  vain.  They  will  not  spend  their  time  upon  me,  or  you,  or  you.  No:  they 
disdain  such  vermin,  when  the  mighty  boar  of  the  forest,  that  has  broke 
through  all  their  toils,  is  before  them.  But  what  will  all  their  efforts  avail? 
No  sooner  has  he  wounded  one  than  he  lays  down  another  dead  at  his  feet. 
For  my  part,  when  I  snw  his  attack  upon  the  King,  1  own  my  blood  ran 
cold    I  thought  he  had  ventured  too  far,  and  there  was  an  end  of  his  tri- 
umphs, not  that  he  had  not  asserted  many  truths.  Yes,  Sir,  there  are  in 
that  composition  many  bold  truths,  by  which  a  wise  prince  might  profit. 
It  was  the  rancour  and  venom,  with  which  I  was  struck.  In  these  respects 
the  North  Briton  is  as  much  inferior  to  him,  as  in  strength,  wit,  and  judg- 
ment   But  while  I  expected  in  this  daring  flight  his  final  ruin  anil  fall, 
behold  him  rising  still  higher,  and  coming  down  souse  upon  both  Houses 
of  Parliament.  Yes,  he  did  make  you  his  quarry,  and  you  still  bleed  from 
the  wounds  of  his  talons.  You  crouched,  and  still  crouch,  beneath  his  rage. 
Nor  has  he  dreaded  the  terrors  of  your  brow,  Sir;  he  has  attacked  even 
you — h?  has — and  I  believe  you  have  no  reason  to  triumph  in  the  encoun- 
ter. In  short,  after  carrying  away  our  Royal  Eagle  in  his  pounces,  and 
dashing  him  agunst  a  rock,  he  has  laid  you  prostrate.  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons  are  but  the  sport  of  his  fury.  Were  he  a  member  of  this  house, 
what  might  not  be  expected  from  his  knowledge,  his  firmness,  and  inte- 
grity? He  would  be  easily  known  by  his  contempt  of  all  danger,  by  his 
penetration,  by  his  vigour.  Nothing  would  escape  his  vigilance  and  ac- 
tivity.  Bad  ministers  could  conceal  nothing  front  his  sagacity;  nor  could 
promises  nor  threats  induce  him  to  conceal  any  thing  from  the  public." 
The  following  is  part  of  a  speech  delivered  by  Lord  North. 
"When   factious  and  discontented  men   have  brought  things  to  this 
pass,  why  should  we  be  surprised  at  the  difficult}'  of  bringing  libellers  to 
justice?  Why  should  we  wonder  that  the  great  boar  of  the  wood,  this 
mighty  Ji  nibs  has  broke  through  the  toils  and  foiled  the  hunters?  Though 
there  may  be  at  present  no  spear  that  will  reach  him,  yet  he  may  be  some 
time  or  other  caught.  At  any  rate  he  will  be  exhausted  with  fruitless 
efforts;  those  tusks  which  he  has  been  whetting  to  wound  and  gnaw  the 
constitution  will  be  worn  out.  Truth  will  at  last  prevail.  The  public  will 
see  and  feel  that  he  has  either  advanced  false  facts,  or  reasoned  falsely 
from  true  principles;  and  that  he  has  owed  his  escape  to  the  spirit  of  the 

times 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #5 

motives  of  the  king.  Aware  as  he  is  of  the  arguments  in 
favour  of  occasionally  attacking  the  character  of  the  chief 
magistrate,  as  urged  by  Junius  himself  in  his  Preface  post 
p.  26,  and  in  Vol.  II.  p.  69,  he  still  thinks  that  no  possible 
circumstances  could  justify  so  gross  a  disrespect  and  in- 
decencv;  that  no  principle  of  the  constitution  supports  it, 
and  that  every  advantage  it  was  calculated  to  produce,  might 
have  been  obtained  in  an  equal  degree  and  to  an  equal  extent, 
by  animadverting  upon  the  conduct  of  the  king's  ministers, 
instead  of  censuring  that  of  the  king  in  person.  In  the  vo- 
lumes before  us  the  editor  is  ready  to  acknowledge  that  these 
kinds  of  paragraphs  seem  at  times  not  altogether  free  from, 
what  ought  never  to  enter  the  pages  of  a  writer  on  national 
subjects — individual  spleen  and  enmity.  But  well  may  we 
forgive  such  trivial  aberrations  of  the  heart,  in  the  midst  of 
the  momentous  matter  these  volumes  are  well  known  to  con- 
tain, the  important  principles  they  inculcate;  and  especially 
under  the  recollection  that  but  for  the  letters  of  Junius,  the 
Commons  of  England  might  still  have  been  without  a  know- 
ledge of  the  transactions  of  the  House  of  Commons,  consist- 
ing of  their  parliamentary  representatives— have  been  ex- 
posed to  the  absurd  and  obnoxious  harassment  of  parlia- 
mentary arrests,  upon  a  violation  of  privileges  undefined  and 
incapable  of  being  appealed  against— defrauded  of  their 
estates  upon  an  arbitrary  and  interested  claim  of  the  crown- 
times,  not  to  the  justice  of  his  cause.  The  North  Briton,  the  most  flagi- 
tious libel  of  its  day,  would  have  been  equally  secure,  had  it  been  as  pow- 
erfully supported.  But  the  press  had  not  then  overflowed  the  land  with 
its  black  gall,  and  poisoned  the  minds  of  the  people.  Political  writers  had 
some  shame  left;  they  had  some  reverence  for  the  Crown,  some  respect 
for  the  name  of  Majesty  Nor  were  there  any  members  of  Parliament 
hardy  enough  to  harangue  in  defence  of  libels.  Lawyers  could  hardly  be 
brought  to  plead  for  them.  But  the  scene  is  now  entirely  changed.  With- 
out doors,  within  doors,  the  same  abusive  strains  prevail.  Libels  find  pa- 
trons in  both  houses  of  Parliament  as  well  as  in  Westminster  Hall.  Nay, 
they  pronounce  libels  on  the  very  judges  They  pervert  the  privilege  of 
this  house  to  the  purposes  of  faction.  They  catch  and  swallow  the  breath 
of  the  inconstant  multitude,  because,  I  suppose,  they  take  their  voice, 
which  is  now  that  of  libels,  to  be  the  voice  of  Cod." 


#6  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

and  deprived  of  the  constitutional  right  of  a  jury  to  consider 
the  question  of  law  as  well  as  that  of  fact.  To  the  steady  pa- 
triotism of  the  late  Mr.  Fox  is  the  nation  solely  indebted  for 
a  direct  legislative  decision  upon  this  last  important  point; — 
but  the  ground  was  previously  cleared  by  the  letters  before 
us;  it  is  not  often  that  a  judge  has  dared  openly  to  controvert 
this  right  since  the  clear  and  unanswerable  argument  of  Ju- 
nius upon  this  subject,  in  opposition  to  the  arbitrary  and 
illegal  doctrine  of  Lord  Mansfield,  as  urged  in  the  case  of 
the  King  against  Woodfall1: — an  argument  which  seems  to 
have  silenced  every  objection,  to  have  convinced  every  party, 
and  without  which  perhaps  even  the  zeal  and  talents  of 
Mr.  Fox  himself  might  have  been  exercised  in  vain. 

But,  after  all,  who  or  what  was  Junius?  this  shadow  of  a 
name,  who  thus  shot  his  unerring  arrows  from  an  impene- 
trable concealment,  and  punished  without  being  perceived? 
The  question  is  natural;  and  it  has  been  repeated  almost 
without  intermission,  from  the  appearance  of  his  first  letter. 
It  is  not  unnatural,  moreover,  from  the  pertinacity  with 
which  he  has  at  all  times  eluded  discovery,  that  the  vanity 
of  many  political  writers  of  inferior  talents  should  have  in- 
duced them  to  lay  an  indirect  claim  to  his  Letters,  and 
especially  after  the  danger  of  responsibility  had  considerably 
ceased.  Yet  while  the  Editor  of  the  present  impression  does 
not  undertake  to  communicate  the  real  name  of  Junius,  he 
pledges  himself  to  prove,  from  incontrovertible  evidence, 
afforded  by  the  private  letters  of  Junius  himself  during  the 
period  in  question,  in  connexion  with  other  documents, 
that  not  one  of  these  pretenders  has  ever  had  the  smallest 
right  to  the  distinction  which  some  of  them  have  ardently 
coveted. 

These  private  and  confidential  letters,  addressed  to  the 
late  Mr.  Woodfall,  are  now  for  the  first  time  made  public 
by  his  son,  who  is  in  possession  of  the  author's  autographs2; 

T  See  this  case  more  particularly  detailed  in  note  to  Preface,  p.  10,  and 
note  to  p.  191  of  this  Vol. 

2  There  must  have  been  some  misunderstanding'  either  of  the  extent  of 
the  question,  or  the  nature  of  the  answer  in  that  part  of  a  conversation 

which 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *7 

and  from  the  various  facts  and  anecdotes  they  disclose,  not 
only  in  relation  to  this  extraordinary  character,  but  to  other 
characters  as  well,  they  cannot  fail  of  being  highly  interest- 
ing to  the  political  world.  To  have  published  these  letters 
at  an  earlier  period  would  have  been  a  gross  breach  of  trust 
and  decorum:  the  term  of  trust,  however,  seems  at  length 
to  have  expired;  most  of  the  parties  have  paid  the  debt  of 
nature,  and  should  any  be  yet  living,  the  length  of  time 
which  has  since  elapsed  has  so  completely  blunted  the  aspe- 

which  Mr.  Campbell,  in  his  Life  of  Hugh  Boyd,  states  to  have  occurred 
between  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  (editor  and  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the 
Public  Advertiser,)  and  himself,  in  relation  to  the  preservation  of  these 
autographs.  "  I  proceeded,"  says  Mr.  Campbell,  "  to  ask  him  if  he  had 
preserved  any  of  the  manuscripts  of  Junius?  He  said  he  had  not."  p.  164. 
The  veracity  of  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall  is  well  known  to  have  been  unim- 
peachable; and  it  is  by  no  means  the  intention  of  the  editor  to  suspect  that 
of  Mr.  Campbell.  It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Woodfall  understood  the  ques- 
tion to  be  whether  he  had  regularly  preserved  the  manuscripts  of  Junius, 
or  had  preserved  any  of  the  manuscripts  of  Junius  which  had  publicly 
appeared  under  that  signature?  No  man,  not  even  Mr.  Campbell  himself 
could  have  suspected  Mr  Woodfall  to  have  been  guilty  of  a  wilful  false- 
hood; nor  can  any  advantage  be  assigned  or  even  conceived  that  could  pos- 
sibly have  resulted  from  such  a  falsehood,  had  it  taken  place. 

It  is  equally  extraordinary  that  Mr.  Campbell,  in  this  same  conversa- 
tion, should  represent  Mr.  Woodfall  as  saying  that  "  as  to  the  story  about 
Hamilton  quoting  Junius  to  the  late  Duke  of  Richmond,  he  knew  it  to  be 
a  misconception."  In  regard  to  the  story  itself,  Woodfall  knew  it  to  be 
founded  in  fact  from  Hamilton's  own  relation — and  has  repeatedly  men- 
tioned  it  as  such;  but  he  may  have  meant  that  the  story  as  told  by  Mr. 
Campbell,  was  a  misconception. 

In  effect  the  late  Duke  of  Richmond  himself  distinctly  informed  the 
son  of  the  late  Mr.  Woodfall,  that  such  a  communication  with  Hamilton 
had  taken  place,  while  his  Grace  was  riding  with  Sir  John  Peachey,  after- 
wards Lord  Selsea,  in  the  park  at  Goodwood,  though  he  could  not  at  that 
distance  of  time  recollect  the  particular  letter  to  which  it  referred.  The 
clue  to  the  mystery  is  that  Mr.  Hamilton  was  acquainted  with  the  late 
Mr.  H.  S-  Woodfall,  and  used  occasionally  to  call  at  his  office;  whence  it 
is  highly  probable  that  Mr.  Woodfall  had  shewn  him  or  detailed  to  him  a 
Letter  from  Junius  then  just  received,  and  intended  for  publication  on  a 
certain  day.  Hamilton  alluded  to  the  general  purport  of  this  letter,  on  the 
day  on  which  it  was  to  have  been  published  as  though  he  had  just  read  it; 
when  to  the  astonishment  of  his  Grace  and  Sir  John  Peachey,  to  whom 
he  thus  mentioned  it,  no  such  letter  appeared,  though  it  did  appear  the 
next  day  or  the  day  after. 


*8  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

rity  of  the  strictures  they  contain,  that  they  could  scarcely 
object  to  so  remote  a  publication  of  them.  Junius,  in  the 
career  of  his  activity,  was  the  man  of  the  people;  and  when 
the  former  can  receive  no  injury  from  the  disclosure,  the 
latter  have  certainly  a  claim  to  every  information  that  can  be 
communicated  concerning  him. 

It  was  on  the  28th  of  April,  in  the  year  1767,  that  the 
late  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  receive  d  amidst  other  letters  from 
a  great  number  of  correspondents  for  the  use  of  the  Public 
Advertiser  of  which  he  was  a  proprietor,  the  first  public  ad- 
dress of  this  celebrated  writer.  He  had  not  then  assumed 
the  name,  or  rather  written  under  the  signature  of  Junius; 
nor  did  he  always  indeed  assume  a  signature  of  any  kind. 
When  he  did  so,  however,  his  signatures  were  diversified, 
and  the  chief  of  them  were  Mnemon  and  Atticus,  Lucius, 
Junius,  and  Brutus.  Under  the  first  he  sarcastically  opposed 
the  ministry  upon  the  subject  of  the  Nullum  Tempus  bill, 
which  involved  the  celebrated  dispute  concerning  the  trans- 
fer on  the  part  of  the  crown  of  the  Duke  of  Portland's  estate 
of  the  forest  of  Inglewood,  and  the  manor  and  castle  of  Car- 
lisle, to  Sir  James  Lowther,  son-in-law  of  Lord  Bute,  upon 
the  plea  that  these  lands,  which  formerly  belonged  to  the 
crown,  had  not  been  duly  specified  in  king  William's  grant 
of  them  to  the  Portland  family;  and  that  hence,  although 
they  had  been  in  the  Portland  family  for  nearly  seventy 
years,  they  of  right  belonged  to  the  crown  still.  The  letters 
signed  Atticus  and  Brutus  relate  chiefly  to  the  growing  dis- 
putes with  the  American  colonies:  and  those  subscribed 
Lucius  exclusively  to  the  outrageous  dismission  of  Sir  Jef- 
fery  Amherst  from  his  post  of  governor  of  Virginia. 

The  name  of  Mnemon  seems  to  have  been  nearly  taken 
up  at  hazard.  That  of  Atticus  was  unquestionably  assumed 
from  the  author's  own  opinion  of  the  purity  of  his  style,  an 
opinion  in  which  the  public  universally  concurred:  and  the 
three  remaining  signatures  of  Lucius,  Junius,  and  Brutus 
were  obviously  deduced  from  a  veneration  for  the  memory 
of  the  celebrated  Roman  patriot,  who  united  these  three 
names  in  his  own. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *9 

There  were  also  a  variety  of  other  names  occasionally 
assumed  by  this  fertile  political  writer,  to  answer  particular 
purposes,  or  more  completely  to  conceal  himself,  and  carry 
forward  his  extensive  design.  That  of  Philo-Junius,  he  has 
avowed  to  the  public,  in  the  authorized  edition  of  the  Let- 
ters of  Junius:  but  besides  this  they  have  yet  to  recognize 
him  under  the  mask  of  Poplicola,  Domitian,  Vindex,  and  a 
variety  of  others,  as  the  subjoined  pages  will  sufficiently 
testify. 

The  most  popular  of  our  author's  letters  anterior  to  those 
published  with  the  signature  of  Junius  in  1769,  were  those 
subscribed  Atticus  and  Lucius;  to  the  former  of  which  the 
few  letters  signed  Brutus  seem  to  have  been  little  more  than 
auxiliary,  and  are  consequently  not  polished  with  an  equal 
degree  of  attention.  These  letters,  in  point  of  time,  preceded 
those  with  the  signature  of  Junius  by  a  few  weeks:  they  are 
certainly  written  with  admirable  spirit  and  perspicuity,  and 
are  entitled  to  all  the  popularity  they  acquired: — yet  they  are 
not  perhaps  possest  of  more  merit  than  our  author's  letters 
signed  Mnemon.  They  nevertheless  deserve  a  more  minute 
attention  from  their  superior  celebrity.  The  proofs  of  their 
having  been  composed  by  the  writer  denominated  Junius 
are  incontestible:  the  manner,  the  phraseology,  the  sarcastic, 
exprobratory  style,  independently  of  any  other  evidence, 
sufficiently  identify  them1.  These  therefore  are  now  added, 

1  That  those  under  the  signature  of  Lucius  were  early  and  generally 
traced  to  the  pen  of  Junius  even  by  writers  of  the  opposite  party,  may  be 
fairly  inferred  from  the  following  passage  in  a  letter  in  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser of  the  date  of  April  27th,  1769,  signed  "  A  long  forgotten  correspon- 
dent" intended  as  an  antidote  to  the  poison  that  Junius  was  supposed  to 
be  propagating. 

"  In  the  warm  and  energetic,  though  keen  and  sarcastic  style  of  Junius, 
we  may,  I  think,  easily  descry  the  Lucius,  long  dreaded  by  his  opponents; 
and  from  the  warmth  of  his  sentiments,  if  they  do  indeed  correspond  with 
his  expressions,  we  may  expect  a  future  Brutus,  a  patriotic  character 
much  to  be  dreaded  by  all  those  who,  content  with  the  portion  of  power 
now  in  the  hands  of  government,  (if  government  had  the  spirit  to  exert  it) 
wish  not  to  see  the  people,  by  their  factious  and  unmeaning  rage,  provoke 
their  long-suffering  Sovereign  to  throw  real  chains  over  them,  and  correct 
their  madness  with  stripes  and  hunger,  the  proper  cure  for  phrenzy,  the 
»nly  specific  for  such  headstrong  and  vicious  insanity." 

Vol.  I.  *  B  Tife 


#10  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

together  with  such  others  whose  genuineness  is  equally  in- 
disputable, to  the  acknowledged  letters  of  Junius,  to  render 
his  productions  complete1. 

The  celebrity  acquired  by  these  earlier  letters  of  Junius,  under  the 
signature  of  Lucius,  induced  several  other  writers  of  the  same  period  te 
adopt  the  same  signature;  and  hence  Lucius,  and  Lucius  Verus  are  com- 
mon signatures  in  the  Public  Advertiser  during  the  years  1769,1770.  But 
there  is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  Junius  himself  ever  had  recourse 
to  this  signature  than  he  had  to  that  of  Atticus,  or  Brutus,  after  the  as- 
sumption of  this  last  appellative.  He  would  not  degrade  the  name  of  Lu- 
cius by  an  unfinished  production,  and  to  all  that  he  regarded  as  finished  he 
continued  to  subscribe  Junius  as  a  still  more  popular  signature. 

An  attempt,  also,  for  the  same  reason,  was  once  made  by  another  cor- 
respondent, to  publish  under  the  signature  of  Junius;  but  the  letter  was 
refused  to  be  inserted  with  that  name  by  the  printer,  who  signified  his  re- 
fusal in  one  of  his  notices  to  his  correspondents  Yet  it  is  curious  to  ob- 
serve, that  one  or  two  spurious  letters  under  the  signature  of  Philo-Junius, 
found  their  way,  as  genuine  epistles,  into  the  P.  A.  (probably  from  casual 
absence  of  the  editor)  if  we  may  determine  from  the  following  statement 
written  immediately  after  Junius's  public  avowal  that  the  letters  sub- 
scribed Philo-Junius  were  his  own  productions. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 
A  paragraph  having  appeared  in  your  paper  of  Saturday  last,  intimating 
that  "you  have  the  author's  consent  to  declare  that  the  letters  published 
in  that  paper  under  the  signature  of  Philo-Junius  are  written  by  Junius," 
I  take  the  liberty  of  acquainting  you  and  the  public,  that  during  the  course 
of  the  years  1768  and  1769  several  letters  under  that  signature  were  writ- 
ten and  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  not  by  Junius,  but  by 

Your  humble  servant, 
Oct.  21,  1771.  G.  F. 

"  [The  printer  presumes  not  to  doubt  the  assertion  of  his  correspondent, 
though  it  is  not  possible  for  him  to  charge  his  memory  with  the  circum- 
stances at  this  distance  of  time.]"  The  printer  might,  however,  with  great 
safety  have  denied  this  assertion  of  G.  F.  which  on  the  face  of  it  bears 
evident  marks  of  inaccuracy,  as  the  first  letter  of  Junius  published  in  the 
genuine  edition  bears  date  January  21,  1769,  and  the  only  one  under  that 
signature  printed  in  1768  is  Miscellaneous  Letter,  No.  lii.  which  did  not 
receive  support  from  an  auxiliary  signature  of  any  kind.  The  fact  is  that 
the  only  Philo-Junius  not  genuine  is  the  one  here  more  particularly  alluded 
to.  Philo-Junius,  No.  xxxi.  was  originally  published  in  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser under  the  signature  of  Moderatus. 

1  When  the  late  Mr.  WoodfalL  so  early  as  the  summer  of  1769,  had  an 
intention  of  re-publishing  such  of  the  Letters  of  Junius  as  had  already  ap- 
peared in  the  Public  Advertiser,  the  author,  in  Private  Letter,  No.  7, 

observed 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *n 

It  is  no  objection  to  their  being  genuine  that  they  were 
emitted  by  Junius  in  his  own  edition  published  by  Mr. 
Woodfall: — there  is  a  material  difference  between  printing 
a  complete  edition  of  the  letters  of  Junius,  and  a  complete 
edition  of  the  letters  of  the  writer  of  this  name.  The  first 
was  the  main  object  of  Junius  himself,  and  it  was  not 
necessary  therefore,  that  he  should  have  extended  it  to 
letters  composed  by  him  under  any  other  signature,  except- 
ing indeed  those  of  Philo-Junius,  which  it  was  expedient 
for  him  to  avow;  the  second  is  the  direct  design  of  the 
edition  before  us; — and  it  would  be  inconsistent  with  it  to 
suppress  any  of  his  letters,  under  what  signature  soever 
they  may  have  appeared,  that  possess  sufficient  interest  to 
excite  the  attention  of  the  public. 

The  first  of  the  letters  (signed  Atticus)  was  written  in 
the  beginning  of  August,  1768.  It  takes  a  general,  and  by 
no  means  an  uncandicl,  survey  of  the  state  of  the  nation  at 
that  period,  and  particularly  in  regard  to  its  funded  pro- 
perty, the  alarming  and  dangerous  depression  of  which, 
from  the  still  hostile  appearance  of  France,  the  prospect  of 
a  rupture  with  the  American  colonies,  the  wretchedness  of 
the  public  finances,  and  the  imbecility  of  the  existing  ad- 
ministration, struck  the  writer  so  forcibly  as  to  induce  him, 
as  he  tells  us,  to  transfer  his  property  from  the  funds  to 
what  he  conceived  the  more  solid  security  of  landed  estate. 
The  conclusion  of  this  letter  exhibits  so  much  of  the  essen- 
tial style  and  manner  of  Junius,  that  it  has  every  claim 
to  be  copied  in  this  place  as  affording  an  internal  proof 
of  identity  of  pen. 

"  We  are  arrived  at  that  point  when  new  taxes  either 
produce   nothing,  or  defeat  the  old  ones,  and  when  new 

observed  to  the  printer,  "  Do  with  my  letters  exactly  what  you  please.  I 
should  think  that  to  make  a  better  figure  than  Newberry,  some  others  of 
my  letters  may  be  added,  and  so  throw  out  an  hint,  that  you  have  reason  to 
euspect  they  are  by  the  same  author-  If  you  adopt  this  plan,  I  shall  point 
out  those  which  I  would  recommend;  for,  you  know,  I  do  not,  nor  indeed 
have  I  time  to  give  equal  care  to  them  all." 


*12        '  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

duties  only  operate  as  a  prohibition:  yet  these  are  the  times 
when  every  ignorant  boy  thinks  himself  fit  to  be  a  minister. 
Instead  of  attendance  to  objects  of  national  importance,  our 
worthy  governors  are  contented  to  divide  their  time  between 
private  pleasures  and  ministerial  intrigues.  Their  activity  is 
just  equal  to  the  persecution  of  a  prisoner  in  the  King's 
Bench,  and  to  the  honourable  struggle  of  providing  for 
their  dependents.  If  there  be  a  good  man  in  the  king's 
service  they  dismiss  him  of  course;  and  when  bad  news 
arrives,  instead  of  uniting  to  consider  of  a  remedy,  their 
time  is  spent  in  accusing  and  reviling  one  another.  Thus 
the  debate  concludes  in  some  half  misbegotten  measure, 
which  is  left  to  execute  itself.  Away  they  go:  one  retires  to 
his  country  house;  another  is  engaged  at  an  horse  race;  a 
third  has  an  appointment  with  a  prostitute; — and  as  to  their 
country,  they  leave  her,  like  a  cast  off^  mistress,  to  perish 
under  the  diseases  they  have  given  her.'''' 

It  was  just  at  this  period  that  the  very  extraordinary 
step  occurred  of  the  dismissal  of  Sir  Jeffery  Amherst  from 
his  government  of  Virginia,  for  the  sole  purpose,  as  it 
should  seem,  of  creating  a  post  for  the  Earl  of  Hillsbo- 
rough's intimate  friend  Lord  Botetourt,  who  had  com- 
pletely ruined  himself  by  gambling  and  extravagance.  This 
post  had  been  expressly  given  to  Sir  JefTery  for  life,  as 
a  reward  for  his  past  services  in  America,  and  it  was  punc- 
tiliously stipulated  that  a  personal  residence  would  be  dis- 
pensed with.  It  was  an  atrocity  well  worthy  of  public  attack 
and  condemnation;  and  the  keen  vigilance  of  Junius,  which 
seems  first  to  have  traced  it  out,  hastened  to  expose  it  to 
the  public  in  all  its  indecency  and  outrage,  and  with  the 
warmth  of  a  personal  friendship  for  the  veteran  hero.  The 
subject  being  of  a  different  description  from  that  he  had 
engaged  in  under  the  signature  of  Atticus,  he  assumed  a 
new  name,  and  for  the  first  time  sallied  forth  under  that  of 
Lucius,  subscribed  to  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Earl  of 
Hillsborough,  minister  for  the  American  department,  and 
published  in  the  Public  Advertiser  Aug.  10th,  1768.  A 
vindication,  or  rather  an  apology,  was  entered  into,  by  three 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #13 

or  four  correspondents  under  different  signatures,  but  almost 
every  one  of  whom  was  regarded  by  Junius,  and  indeed  by 
the  public  at  large,  as  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough  himself,  or 
some  individual  writer  under  his  immediate  controul,  as- 
suming a  mere  diversity  of  mask  the  better  to  accomplish 
the  purpose  of  a  defence.  Lucius  Junius  followed  up  the 
contest  without  sparing, — the  minister  became  ashamed  of 
his  conduct,  and  Sir  Jeffery,  within  a  few  weeks  after  his 
dismissal  and  the  resignation  of  two  regiments  which  he 
commanded,  was  restored  to  the  command  of  one  of  them, 
and  appointed  to  that  of  another;  and  in  May,  1776,  was 
created  a  peer  of  the  realm,  which  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
had  refused  him,  under  the  strange  and  impolitic  assertion 
that  he  had  not  fortune  enough  to  maintain  such  a  dignity 
with  the  splendour  it  required.  The  sarcastic  remark  of 
Lucius  upon  this  observation  of  his  Grace,  is  entitled  to 
attention,  as  identifying  him  with  Junius  in  his  peculiar 
severity  of  reproach. 

"  The  Duke  of  Grafton's  idea  of  the  proper  object  of  a 
British  peerage  differs  very  materially  from  mine.  His  grace, 
in  the  true  spirit  of  business,  looks  for  nothing  but  an  opu- 
lent fortune;  meaning,  I  presume,  the  fortune  which  can 
purchase,  as  well  as  maintain  a  title.  We  understand  his 
grace,  and  know  who  dictated  that  article.  He  has  declared 
the  terms  on  which  Jews,  gamesters,  pedlars,  and  contrac- 
tors (if  they  have  sense  enough  to  take  the  hint)  may  rise 
without  difficulty  into  British  peers.  There  was  a  time 
indeed,  though  not  within  his  grace's  memory,  when  titles 
were  the  reward  of  public  virtue,  and  when  the  crown  did 
not  think  its  revenue  ill  employed  in  contributing  to  support 
the  honours  it  had  bestowed.  It  is  true  his  grace's  family 
derive  their  wealth  and  greatness  from  a  different  origin;— 
from  a  system  which  it  seems  he  is  determined  to  revive. 
His  confession  is  frank  at  least,  and  well  becomes  the  can- 
dour of  a  young  man.  I  dare  say,  that  if  either  his  grace  or 
your  lordship  had  had  the  command  of  a  seven  years'  war 
in  America,  you  would  have  taken  care  that  poverty,  how- 
ever honourable,  should  not  have  been  an  objection  to  your 


*U  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

advancement; you  would  not  have  stood  in  the  predica- 
ment of  Sir  Jeffery  Amherst,  who  is  refused  a  title  of  honour 
because  he  did  not  create  a  fortune  equal  to  it  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  public." 

He  is  not  less  severe  upon  Lord  Hillsborough  in  a  suc- 
ceeding letter;  and  the  editor  extracts  the  following  passage 
for  the  same  purpose  he  has  introduced  the  preceding. 

"  That  you  are  a  civil,  polite  person  is  true.  Few  men 
understand  the  little  morals  better  or  observe  the  great  ones 
less  than  your  lordship.  You  can  bow  and  smile  in  an  honest 
man's  face,  while  you  pick  his  pocket.  These  are  the  virtues 
of  a  court,  in  which  your  education  has  not  been  neglected. 
In  any  other  school  you  might  have  learned  that  simplicity 
and  integrity  are  worth  them  all.  Sir  Jeffery  Amherst  was 
fighting  the  battles  of  his  country,  while  you,  my  Lord,  the 
darling  child  of  prudence  and  urbanity,  were  practising  the 
generous  arts  of  a  courtier,  and  securing  an  honourable 
interest  in  the  antichamber  of  a  favourite." 

Having  thus  signally  triumphed  in  the  affair  of  Sir  Jeffery 
Amherst,  our  invisible  state-satyrist  now  returned  to  the 
subject  he  had  commenced  under  the  signature  of  Atticus, 
and  pursued  it  in  three  additional  letters,  with  the  same 
signature,  from  the  beginning  of  October  till  the  close  of 
November,  in  the  same  year;  offering  a  few  general  re- 
marks upon  collateral  topics  in  two  or  three  letters  signed 
Brutus.  The  characteristics  of  Junius  are  here  often  as 
conspicuous  as  in  any  letters  he  ever  wrote:  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  confine  ourselves  to  two  passages,  since  two  compe- 
tent witnesses  are  as  good  as  a  thousand.  The  following  is 
his  description  of  the  prime  minister  of  the  day. 

"  When  the  Duke  of  Grafton  first  entered  into  office,  it 
was  the  fashion  of  the  times  to  suppose  that  young  men  might 
have  wisdom  without  experience.  They  thought  so  them- 
selves, and  the  most  important  affairs  of  this  country  were 
committed  to  the  first  trial  of  their  abilities.  His  Grace  had 
honourably  flesht  his  maiden  sword  in  the  field  of  opposition, 
and  had  gone  through  all  the  discipline  of  the  minority  with 
credit.  He  dined  at  Wildman's,  railed  at  favourites,  looked 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *15 

up  to  Lord  Chatham  with  astonishment,  and  was  the  declared 
advocate  of  Mr.  Wilkes.  It  afterwards  pleased  his  Grace 
to  enter  into  administration  with  his  friend  Lord  Rocking- 
ham, and,  in  a  very  little  time,  it  pleased  his  Grace  to  aban- 
don him.  He  then  accepted  of  the  treasury  upon  terms  which 
Lord  Temple  had  disdained.  For  a  short  time  his  submission 
to  Lord  Chatham  was  unlimited.  He  could  not  answer  a 
private  letter  without  Lord  Chatham's  permission.  I  pre- 
sume he  was  then  learning  his  trade,  for  he  soon  set  up  for 
himself.  Until  he  declared  himself  the  minister,  his  charac- 
ter had  been  but  little  understood.  From  that  moment  a  sys- 
tem of  conduct,  directed  by  passion  and  caprice,  not  only 
reminds  us  that  he  is  a  young  man,  but  a  young  man  with- 
out solidity  or  judgment.  One  day  he  desponds  and  threatens 
to  resign.  The  next,  he  finds  his  blood  heated,  and  swears  to 
his  friends  he  is  determined  to  go  on.  In  his  public  mea- 
sures we  have  seen  no  proof  either  of  ability  or  consistency. 
The  stamp-act  had  been  repealed  (no  matter  how  unwisely) 
under  the  preceding  administration.  The  colonies  had  reason 
to  triumph,  aud  were  returning  to  their  good  humour.  The 
point  was  decided,  when  this  young  man  thought  proper  to 
revive  it.  Without  either  plan  or  necessity  he  adopts  the 
spirit  of  Mr.  GrenvihV's  measures,  and  renews  the  question 
of  taxation  in  a  form  more  odious  and  less  effectual  than  that 
©f  the  law  which  had  been  repealed." 

The  following  is  his  character  of  the  members  of  the 
cabinet  generally.  "  The  school  they  were  bred  in  taught 
them  how  to  abandon  their  friends,  without  deserting  their 
principles.  There  is  a  littleness  even  in  their  ambition j  for 
money  is  their  first  object.  Their  professed  opinions  upon 
some  great  points  are  so  different  from  those  of  the  party, 
with  which  they  are  now  united,  that  the  council-chamber  is 
become  a  scene  of  open  hostilities.  While  the  fate  of  Great 
Britain  is  at  stake,  these  worthy  counsellors  dispute  without 
decency,  advise  without  sincerity,  resolve  without  decision, 
and  leave  the  measure  to  be  executed  by  the  man  who  voted 
against  it.  This,  I  conceive,  is  the  last  disorder  of  the  state. 
The  consultation  meets  but  to  disagree.  Opposite  medicines 


*16  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

are  prescribed,  and  the  last  fixed  on  is  changed  by  the  hand 
that  gives  it." 

The  attention  paid  to  these  philippics,  and  the  celebrity 
they  had  so  considerably  acquired,  stimulated  the  author  to 
new  and  additional  exertions:  and  having  in  the  beginning 
of  the  ensuing  year  completed  another  with  more  than  usual 
elaboration  and  polish,  which  he  seems  to  have  intended  as 
a  kind  of  introductory  address  to  the  nation  at  large,  he  sent 
it  forth  under  the  name  of  Junius,  (a  name  he  had  hitherto 
assumed  but  once,)  to  the  office  of  the  Public  Advertiser, 
in  which  journal  it  appeared  on  Saturday,  January  21, 1769. 
The  popularity  expected  by  the  author  from  this  perform- 
ance was  more  than  accomplished;  and  what  in  some  mea- 
sure added  to  his  fame,  was  a  reply  (for  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser was  equally  open  to  all  parties)  from  a  real  character 
of  no  small  celebrity  as  a  scholar,  as  well  as  a  man  of  rank, 
Sir  Wm.  Draper;  principally  because  the  attack  upon  his 
Majesty's  ministers  had  extended  itself  to  Lord  Granby,  at 
that  time  commander  in  chief,  for  whom  Sir  William  pro- 
fessed the  most  cordial  esteem  and  friendship. 

Sir  Wm.  Draper  appears,  to  have  been  a  worthy,  and,  on 
the  whole,  an  independent  man;  and  Lord  Granby  was  per- 
haps the  most  honest  and  immaculate  of  his  Majesty's  minis- 
ters. Junius  did  not  begin  the  dispute  with  the  former,  and 
seems  from  a  regard  for  his  character,  to  have  continued  it 
unwillingly:  "  My  answer,"  says  he  to  him  in  his  last  letter1, 
upon  a  second  assault, and  altogether  without  reason,  "shall 
be  short;  for  I  write  to  you  with  reluctance,  and  I  hope  we 
shall  now  conclude  our  correspondence  for  ever!"  At  the 
latter  he  had  only  glanced  incidentally,  (for  upon  the  whole 
he  approved  his  conduct2,)  and  seems  rather  to  have  done 
so  from  the  company  he  consorted  with,  than  from  any  gross 
misdeeds  of  his  own.  Nothing  could  therefore  have  been 
more  improvident  or  impolitic  than  this  attack  of  Sir  Wm. 
Draper:  if  volunteered  in  favour  of  the  ministry,  it  is  impos- 

1  Letter  xxv.  Vol.  I.  p.  157. 

2  See  his  opinion  of  Lord  Granby  given  under  the  name  of  Lucius,  in 
Miscellaneous  Letters  of  this  writer,  Vol.  II.  p.  160,  as  also  in  the  note  at 
the  close  of  Junius,  Vol  I.  p.  66. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #17 

sible  for  a  defence  to  have  been  worse  planned; — for  by- 
confining  the  vindication  to  the  individual  that  was  least  ac- 
cused, it  tacitly  admitted  that  the  charges  advanced  against 
all  the  rest  were  well  founded;  while,  if  volunteered  in 
favour  of  Lord  Granby  alone,  it  might  easily  have  been 
anticipated  by  the  writer  that  his  visionary  opponent  would 
be  hereby  challenged  to  bring  forward  peccadillos  which 
would  otherwise  never  have  been  heard  of,  and  that  he 
would  not  fail  at  the  same  time,  to  scrutinize  the  character 
of  Sir  William  himself,  and  to  ascribe  this  act  of  precipitate 
zeal  to  an  interested  desire  of  additional  promotion  in  the 
army.  It  was  too  much  for  Sir  William  to  expect  that  Ju- 
nius would  be  hurried  into  an  intemperate  disclosure  of  his 
real  name  bv  a  swaggering  offer  to  measure  swords  with 
him;  while  the  following  rebuke  was  but  a  just  retaliation 
for  his  challenge. 

**  Had  you  been  originally  and  without  provocation  at- 
tacked by  an  anonymous  writer,  you  would  have  some  right 
to  demand  his  name.  But  in  this  cause  you  are  a  volunteer. 
You  engaged  in  it  with  the  unpremeditated  gallantry  of  a  sol- 
dier. You  were  content  to  set  your  name  in  opposition  to  a 
man  who  would  probably  continue  in  concealment.  You  un- 
derstood the  terms  upon  which  we  were  to  correspond,  and 
gave  at  least  a  tacit  assent  to  them.  After  voluntarily  attack- 
ing me  under  the  character  of  Junius,  what  possible  right 
have  you  to  know  me  under  any  other?  Will  you  forgive  me 
if  I  insinuate  to  you,  that  you  foresaw  some  honour  in  the 
apparent  spirit  of  coming  forward  in  person,  and  that  you 
were  not  quite  indifferent  to  the  display  of  your  literary 
qualifications?" 

In  reality  Junius,  though  a  severe  satirist,  was  not  in  his 
general  temper  a  malevolent  writer,  nor  an  ungenerous  man. 
No  one  has  ever  been  more  ready  to  admit  the  brilliant 
talents  of  Sir  William  Blackstone  than  himself,  or  to  apply 
to  his  Commentaries  for  legal  information,  while  reprobating 
his  conduct  in  the  unconstitutional  expulsion  of  Mr.  Wilkes 
from  the  House  of  Commons.  "  If  I  were  personally  your 
enemy,"  says  he  in  his  letter  to  him  upon  this  subject,  "  J 

Vol.  I,  *  C 


#18  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

should  dwell  with  a  malignant  nkasure  upon  those  great  and 
useful  qualiji 'cations  which  i/ou  certainly  possess,  and  by 
which  von  once  acquired,  though  they  could  not  preserve  to 
you  the  respect  and  esteem  of  your  country.  I  should  enu- 
merate the  honours  you  have  lost,  and  the  virtues  you  have 
disgraced:  but  having  no  private  resentments  to  gratify,  I 
think  it  sufficient  to  have  given  my  opinion  of  your  public 
conduct,  leaving  the  punishment  it  deserves  to  your  closet 
and  to  yourself." 

Thr-  rescue    of  General  Gansel,  by  means  of  a  party  of 
guards,  from  the  hands  of  the  Sheriff's  officers  after  they  had 
arrested  him  for  debt,  was  an  outrage  upon  the  law  which 
well  demanded  castigation;  and  the  attempt  to  quash  this 
transaction  on  the  part  of  the  minister,  instead  of  delivering 
the  culprits  over  to  the  punishment  they  had   merited,  was 
an  outrage  of  at  least  equal  atrocity,  and  demanded  equal 
reprobation.  The  sever  ty  with  which  the  minister  was  re- 
peatedly attacked   by   Junius  on  this  subject  is  still  well 
known  to  many:  but  the  reason  is  not  yet  known  to  any  one 
perhaps,  why  he  suddenly  dropped  this  subject,  after  having 
positivelv  declared  in  his  letter  of  November  15,  1769,  Vol. 
I.  p.  185,  "  if  the  gentlemen,  whose  conduct  is  in  question, 
are  not  brought  to  a  trial,  the  Duke  of  Grafton  shall  hear 
from  me  again."  From  his  Private  Letters  to  Mr.  Wood- 
fall,  we  shall  now  learn  that  he  was  solely  actuated  in  his 
forbearance  by   motives  of  humanity:  "  The  only  thing," 
says  he,  in  a  note  alluding  to  this  transaction,  "  that  hinders 
my  pushing  the  subject  of  my  last  letter,  is  really  the  fear 
of  ruining  that  poor  devil  Gansel,  and  those  other  block- 
heads,'". 

In  like  manner  having  been  betrayed  by  the  first  rumours 
of  the  day  into  what  he  afterwards  found  to  have  been  too 
atrocious  an  opinion,  and  expressed  himself  with  too  indig- 
nant a' warmth  upon  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Vaughan  in  his  well 
knoAvn  atu  mpt  to  purchase  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton  the  re- 
version of  a  patent  place  in  Jamaica,  he  hastened  to  make 

1  See  Private  Letters,  No.  11. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *19 

him  both  publicly  and  privately  all  the  reparation  in  his 
power.  u  I  think  myself  obliged,"  says  he,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Grafton,  "to  do  this  justice  to  an  injured  man,  be- 
cause I  was  deceived  by  the  appearances- thrown  out  by  your 
Grace,  and  have  frequently  spoken  of  his  conduct  with  in- 
dignation. If  he  really  be,  what  I  think  him,  honest,  though 
mistaken,  he  will  be  happy  in  recovering  his  reputation, 
though  at  the  expense  of  his  understanding1."  Vaughan  him- 
self had  so  high  an  opinion  of  our  author's  integrity,  though 
a  total  stranger  to  him,  that  he  entrusted  hirn  with  his  pri- 
vate papers  upon  the  subject  in  question,  which  Junius  in 
return  took  care  to  employ  to  Vaughau's  advantage2. 

From  the  extraordinary  effect  produced  by  his  first  letter 
under  the  signature  of  Junius,  he  resolved  to  adhere  to  this 
signature  exclusively,  in  all  his  subsequent  letters,  in  which 
he  took  more  than  ordinary  pains,  and  which  alone  he  was 
desirous  of  being  attributed  to  himself;  while  to  other  letters 
composed  with  less  care,  and  merely  explanatory  of  passages 
in  his  more  finished  addresses,  or  introduced  for  some  other 
collateral  purpose,  he  subscribed  some  random  name  which 
occurred  to  him  at  the  moment.  The  letters  of  Philo-Junius 
are  alone  an  exception  to  this  remark.  These  he  alwavs  in- 
tended to  acknowledge;  and  in  truth  they  are  for  the  most 
part  composed  with  so  much  of  the  peculiar  style,  and  finish- 
ed accuracy  of  the  letters  of  Junius,  properly  so  called,  that 
it  would  have  required  but  little  discernment  to  have  regard- 
ed the  two  correspondents  as  the  same  person  under  di^rent 
characters, — idem  et  alter — if  Junius  himself  had  not  at 
length  admitted  them  to  be  his  own  productions,  which  he 
expressly  did,  in  an  authorized  note  from  the  printer,  in- 
serted in  the  Public  Advertiser,  October  19,  1771.  "The 
auxiliary  part  of  Philo-Junius,"  says  he  in  his  Preface,  page 

1  Vol.  I.  p.  215. 

2  Compare  his  private  letter  to  WoodfMl,  Dec.  12,  1769  No.  15.  with 
his  public  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  February  14,  1770,  after  he  had 
examined  these  papers,  and  especially  the  passage,  "  You  laboured  then, 
by  every  species  of  false  suggestion,  and  even  by  publishing  counterfeit 
fetters,  &c."  Vol.  I.  p.  215. 


#00  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY, 

7,  **  was  indispensably  necessary  to  defend  or  explain  par- 
ticular passages  in  Junius,  in  answer  to  plausible  objections; 
but  the  subordinate  character  is  never  guilty  of  the  indeco- 
rum of  praising  his  principal.  The  fraud  was  innocent,  and 
I  always  intended  to  explain  it."  Yet  whatever  were  the 
signatures  he  assumed,  or  the  loose  paragraphs  he  occasion- 
ally addressed  to  the  public,  without  a  signature  of  any  kind, 
we  have  his  own  assertion,  that  from  the  time  of  his  corres- 
ponding, as  Junius,  vvith  the  editor  of  the  Public  Advertiser, 
he  never  wrote  in  any  other  news-paper.  "  I  believe,"  says 
he,  "  I  need  not  assure  you  that  I  have  never  written  in  any 
other  paper  since  I  began  with  yours;"  Private  Letter,  No.  7. 
So  also  in  another  Private  Letter,  No.  13.  "  I  sometimes 
change  my  signature;  but  could  have  no  reason  to  change  the 
paper;  especially  for  one  that  does  not  circulate  half  as  much 
as  yours." 

That  he  was  not  only  a  man  of  highly  cultivated  general 
talents  and  education,  but  had  critically  and  successfully 
studied  the  language,  the  law,  the  constitution,  and  history 
of  his  native  country  is  indubitable.  Yet  this  is  not  all;  the 
proofs  are  just  as  clear  that  he  was  also  a  man  of  independent 
fortune,  that  he  moved  in  the  immediate  circle  of  the  court, 
and  was  intimately  acquainted,  from  its  first  conception,  with 
almost  every  public  measure,  every  ministerial  intrigue,  and 
every  domestic  incident. 

That  he  was  a  man  of  easy,  if  not  of  affluent  circumstances, 
is  umjuestionable  from  the  fact  that  he  never  could  be  in- 
duced in  any  way  or  shape  to  receive  any  acknowledgment 
from  the  proprietor  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  for  the  great 
benefit  and  popularity  he  conferred  on  this  paper  by  his  wri- 
tings, and  to  which  he  was  fairly  entitled.  When  the  first 
genuine  edition  of  his  letters  was  on  the  point  of  publication, 
Mr.  Woodfall  again  urged  him  either  to  accept  half  its 
profits,  or  to  point  out  some  public  charity  or  other  institu- 
tion to  which  an  tqual  sum  might  be  presented.  His  reply  to 
this  request  is  contained  in  a  paragraph  of  one  of  his  Private 
Letters,  No.  59,  and  confers  credit  on  both  the  parties. 
"  What  you  say  about  the  profits  is  very  handsome.  I  like  to 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #21 

deal  with  such  men.  As  for  myself  be  assured  that  I  am  far 
above  all  pecuniary  views,  and  no  other  person  I  think  has 
any  claim  to  share  with  you.  Make  the  most  of  it,  therefore; 
and  let  your  views  in  life  be  directed  to  a  solid,  however 
moderate  independence:  without  it  no  man  can  be  happy  nor 
even  honest."  In  this  last  sentence  he  reasoned  from  the 
sphere  of  life  in  which  he  was  accustomed  to  move;  and,  con- 
fining it  to  this  sphere,  the  transactions  of  every  day  shew  us 
that  he  reasoned  correctly.  It  is  an  additional  proof,  as  well 
of  his  affluence,  as  of  his  generosity,  that  not  long  after  the 
commencement  of  his  correspondence  with  the  printer  of  the 
Public  Advertiser,  he  wrote  to  him  as  follows:  "  For  the 
matter  of  assistance,  be  assured  that,  if  a  question  should 
arise  upon  any  writings  of  mine,  you  shall  not  want  it; — in 
point  of  money  be  assured  you  shall  never  suffer1."  In  per- 
fect and  honourable  consonance  with  which,  when  the  printer 
was  at  length  involved  in  a  prosecution  in  consequence  of 
Junius's  letter  to  the  King,  he  wrote  to  him  as  follows:  "  If 
your  affair  should  come  to  trial,  and  you  should  be  found 
guilty,  you  will  then  let  me  know  what  expense  falls  particu- 
larly on  yourself:  for  I  understand  you  are  engaged  with 
other  proprietors.  Some  way  or  other  you  shall  be  reim- 
bursed2." 

"  As  you  have  told  us,"  says  Sir  W.  Draper,  in  his  last 
letter  to  Junius,  "of  your  importance;  and  that  you  are  a 
person  of  rank  and  fortune,  and  above  a  common  bribe,  you 
may,  in  all  probability,  be  not  unknown  to  his  Lordship 
(Earl  of  Shelburne)  who  can  satisfy  you  of  the  truth  of  what 
I  say3."  Sir  William  alludes^in  this  passage,  to  a  short  pub- 
lic note  of  Junius  to  the  printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser, 
addressed  in  consequence  of  some  verses  which  had  just  ap- 
peared in  that  paper,  entitled  *  The  tears  of  Sedition  on  the 
death  of  Junius;"  in  which  he  observes:  "  It  is  true  I  have 
refused  offers  which  a  more  prudent  or  a  more  interested 
man  would  have  accepted.  Whether  it  be  simplicity  or  vir- 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  6.  dated  Aug.  6,  1769. 
2  Private  Letter,  No.  19.  3  Vol.  L  p.  156. 


*22  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

tue  in  me,  I  can  only  affirm  that  /  am  in  earnest,  because  1 
am  convinced,  as  far  as  my  understanding  is  capable  of  judg- 
ing, that  the  present  ministry  is  driving  this  country  to  de- 
struction; and  you,  I  think,  Sir,  may  be  satisfied  that  my 
rank  and  fortune  place  me  above  a  common  bribe1."  Sir 
William  sneers  at  the  appeal,  and  treats  it  as  the  mere  un- 
founded boast  of  a  man  of  arrogance  and  invisibility:  but 
the  reader  now  sees  sufficiently  that  it  had  a  solid  foundation 
to  rest  upon. 

That  Junius  moved  in  the  immediate  circle  of  the  court, 
and  was  intimately  and  confidentially  connected,  either  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  with  all  the  public  offices  of  government, 
is,  if  possible,  still  clearer  than  that  he  was  a  man  of  indepen- 
dent property;  for  the  feature  that  peculiarly  characterized 
him,  at  the  time  of  his  writing,  and  that  cannot  even  now  be 
contemplated  without  surprise,  was  the  facility  with  which 
he  became  acquainted  with  every  ministerial  manoeuvre, 
whether  public  or  private,  from  almost  the  very  instant  of  its 
conception.  At  the  first  moment  the  partisans  of  the  prime 
minister  were  extolling  his  official  integrity  and  virtue,  in 
not  only  resisting  the  terms  offered  by  Mr.  Vaughan  for  the 
purchase  of  the  reversion  of  a  patent-place  in  Jamaica,  but 
in  commencing  a  prosecution  against  him  for  thus  attempt- 
ing to  corrupt  him,  Junius,  in  his  letter  of  Nov.  29,  1769, 
Vol.  I.  p.  185,  exposed  this  affectation  of  coyness,  as  he  calls 
it,  by  proving  that  the  minister  was  not  only  privy  to.,  but  a 
party  concerned  in,  the  sale  of  another  patent  place,  though 
the  former  had  often  been  disposed  of  before  in  a  manner 
somewhat  if  not  altogether  similar.  The  particulars  of  this 
transaction  are  given  in  his  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton, 
Dec.  12,  1769,  Vol.  I.  p.  187,  and  in  his  private  note  to  Mr. 
Wocdfall  of  the  same  date,  No.  15.  The  rapidity  with  which 
the  affair  of  General  Gansel  reached  him  has  been  already 
noticed.  In  his  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford  he  narrates 
facts  which  could  scarcely  be  known  but  to  persons  immedi- 
ately acquainted  with  the  family.  And  when  the  printer  was 

See  "  s  No.  i. iv.  Vol.  II.  p. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *23 

threatened  with  a  prosecution  in  consequence  of  this  letter, 
he  says  to  him  in  a  private  note,  u  it  is  clearly  my  opinion 
that  you  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  I 
reserve  some  things  expressly  to  awe  him  in  case  he  should 
think  of  bringing  you  before  the  House  of  Lords.  I  am  sure 
I  can  threaten  him  privately  with  such  a  storm  as  would 
make  him  tremble  even  in  his  grave1."  He  was  equally  ac- 
quainted with  the  domestic  concerns  of  Lord  Hartford's 
family2.  Of  a  Mr.  Swinney,  a  correspondent  of  the  printer's, 
he  observes  in  another  confidential  letter,  "  That  Swinney  is 
a  wretched  but  a  dangerous  fool:  he  had  the  impudence  to 
go  to  Lord  Sackville,  whom  he  had  never  spoken  to,  and  to 
ask  him  whether  or  no  he  was  the  author  of  Junius — take 
care  of  him3."  This  anecdote  is  not  a  little  curious:  the  fact 
was  true,  and  occurred  but  a  day  or  two  before  the  letter 
was  written:  but  how  Junius,  unless  he  had  been  Lord  Sack- 
ville  himself,  should  have  been  so  soon  acquainted  with  it, 
baffles  all  conjecture.  In  reality  several  persons  to  whom  this 
transaction  has  been  related,  connecting  it  with  other  cir- 
cumstances of  a  similar  tendency,  have  ventured,  but  too 
precipitately,  to  attribute  the  letters  of  Junius  to  his  Lord- 
ship4. 

i  Private  Letter,  No.  10. 

2  The  following  are  two  of  the  paragraphs  alluded  to  in  Private  Letter, 
No.  42. 

The  Earl  of  Hartford  is  most  honourably  employed  as  terrier  to  find  out 
the  clergyman  that  married  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  an  errand  well  fitted 
to  the  man.  He  might,  however,  be  much  better  employed  in  marrying 
his  daughters  at  the  public  expense.  Witness  the  promise  of  an  Irish 
peerage  to  Mr.  S — t,  &.c.  Sec. 

Nob'  dy  is  so  vociferous  as  the  Earl  of  Hartford  on  the  subject  of  the 
late  unprecedented  Marriage! 

3  Private  Letter,  No.  5. 

4  In  the  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  vn.  Vol.  II.  p.  180,  the  reader  will 
meet  with  the  following  passage,  pretty  conclusively  shewing  the  little 
ground  there  ever  has  been  for  any  such  opinion.  V  I  believe  die  best  thing 
I  can  do  will  be  to  consult  with  Lord  G.  Sackville.  His  character  is  known 
and  respected  in  Ireland  as  much  as  it  is  here;  and  I  know  he  loves  to  be 
stationed  in  the  rear  as  well  as  myself."  The  letter  from  which  the  above 
is  an  exti'act,  independently  of  its  containing  the  style  and  sentiments  of 
J  on i us,  is  thus  additionally  brought  home  to  him  by  the  printer's  custom- 

ary 


*24  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

His  secret  intelligence  respecting  public  transactions  is  as 
extraordinary.  The  accuracy  with  which  he  first  dragged  to 
general  notice  the  dismission  of  Sir  Jeffery  Amherst  from 
his  governorship  of  Virginia  has  been  already  glanced  at. 
w  You  may  assure  the  public,'fcsays  he,  in  a  Private  Letter, 
Jan.  17, 1771,  "that  a  squadron  of  four  ships  of  the  line  is 
ordered  to  be  got  ready  with  all  possible  expedition  for  the 
East  Indies.  It  is  to  be  commanded  by  Commodore  Spry. 
Without  regarding  the  language  of  ignorant  or  interested 
people,  depend  upon  the  assurance  /  give  you,  that  every 
man  in  administration  looks  upon  war  as  inevitable1." 

But  it  would  be  endless  to  detail  every  instance  of  early 
and  accurate  information  upon  political  subjects  with  which 
his  public  and  private  letters  abound.  In  many  cases  he  was 
able  to  indicate  even  to  the  printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser 
himself  the  real  names  of  those  who  corresponded  with  him 
under  fictitious  signatures.  "  Your  Veridicus,"  says  he,  in 
one  letter,  "  is  Mr.  Whitworth2.  I  assure  you  I  have  not 
confided  in  him3."  "Your  Lycurgus,"  he  observes  in  ano- 
ther letter4,  '*  is  a  Mr.  Kent,  a  young  man  of  good  parts  upon 
town." 

Thus  widely  informed,  and  applying  the  information  he 
was  possessed  of  with  an  unsparing  hand,  to  purposes  of 
general  exposure  in  every  instance  of  political  delinquency, 
it  cannot  but  be  supposed  that  Junius  must  have  excited  a 
host  of  enemies  in  every  direction,  and  that  his  safety,  per- 
haps his  existence,  depended  alone  upon  his  concealment. 
Of  this  he  was  sufficiently  sensible.   In  his  last  letter  to  Sir 

ary  acknowledgment  in  the  P.  A.  being  followed  by  the  subjoined  obser- 
vation: "Our  friend  and  correspondent  C  will  always  find  the  utmost 
attention  paid  to  his  favours." 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  28.  The  knowledge  of  this  preparation  was  com- 
municated four  days  before  the  met  ting  of  parliament:  the  war  however 
did  not  take  place;  but  the  preparation  is  now  known  to  have  been  a  fact, 
the  ministry  being  themselves  fearful  that  the  temper  of  parliament  would 
have  forced  them  into  hostilities,  from  which  in  truth  they  very  narrowly 
escaped.  See  note  to  the  Private  Letter  of  this  No. 

2  Richard  Whitworth,  Esq.  M.  P.  for  Stafford. 

3  Private  Letter,  No.  6.  4  Id.  No.  5. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #25 

Win.  Draper,  who  had  endeavoured  by  every  means  to 
stimulate  him  to  a  disclosure  of  himself,  he  observes,  "  As 
to  me,  it  is  by  no  means  necessarv  that  I  should  be  exposed 
to  the  resentment  of  the  worst  and  the  most  powerful  men 
in  this  country,  though  I  may  be  indifferent  about  yours. 
Though  you  would  fight,  there  are  others  who  would  assas- 
sinate1." To  the  same  effect  is  the  following  passage  in  a 
confidential  letter  to  Mr.  Woodfall.  "  I  must  be  more  cau- 
tious than  ever:  I  am  sure  I  should  not  survive  a  discovery 
three  days;  or,  if  I  did,  they  would  attaint  me  by  bill2."  On 
manv  occasions,  therefore,  notwithstanding  all  the  calmness 
and  intrepidity  he  affected  in  his  public  letters,  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  he  should  betray  some  feelings  of  ap- 
prehension in  his  confidential  intercourse.  In  one  of  his 
Private  Letters,  indeed,  he  observes,  "  As  to  me,  be  assured 
it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  they  (the  Cavendish 
family)  or  you  or  any  body  else  should  ever  know  me,  un- 
less I  make  myself  known:  all  arts,  or  enquiries,  or  rewards, 
would  be  equally  ineffectual3."  But  in  other  letters  he  seems 
not  a  little  afraid  of  detection  or  surmise.  u  Tell  me  candid- 
ly," he  says,  at  an  early  period  of  his  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Woodfall  under  the  signature  of  Junius,  u  whether 
you  know  or  suspect  who  I  am4."  "  You  must  not  write  to 
me  again,"  he  observes  in  another  letter,  "  but  be  assured  I 
will  never  desert  you5."  "  Upon  no  account,  nor  for  any 
reason  whatever  are  you  to  write  to  me  until  I  give  you 
notice6."  "  Change  to  the  Somerset  Coffee-house,  and  let 
no  mortal  know  the  alteration.  I  am  persuaded  you  are  too 
honest  a  man  to  contribute  in  any  way  to  my  destruction. 
Act  honourably  by  me,  and  at  a  proper  time  you  shall  know 
me7." 

The  Somerset  Coffee-house  formed  only  one  of  a  great 
variety  of  places,  at  which  answers  and  other  parcels  from 
the  printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser  were  ordered  to  be  left. 
No  plan  indeed  could  be  better  devised  for  secrecy  than  that 

1  Vol.  I.  p.  159.  4  Id.  No.  3.  7  Id.  No.  41. 

2  Private  Letter,  No.  41.  s  Id.  No.  18. 

3  Id.  No.  10.  6  Id.  No.  47- 

Vol.  I.  *  D 


#26  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

by  which  this  correspondence  was  maintained.  A  commas 
name,  such  as  was  by  no  means  likely  to  excite  any  peculiar 
attention,  was  first  chosen  by  Junius  and  a  common  place 
of  deposit  indicated: — the  parcels  from  Junius  himself  were 
sent  direct  to  the  printing-office,  and  whenever  a  parcel  or 
letter  in  return  was  waiting  for  him,  it  was  announced  in  the 
notices  to  correspondents  by  such  signals  as  "  N.  E.  C."— 
"  a  letter,"  u  Vindex  shall  be  considered,"  "  C.  in  the  usual 
place,"  "  an  old  Correspondent  shall  be  attended  to,"  the 
introductory  C.  being  a  little  varied  from  that  commonly 
used;  or  by  a  line  of  Latin  poetry.  "  Don't  always  use," 
says  our  author,  "  the  same  signal:  any  absurd  Latin  verse 
will  answer  the  purpose1."  And  when  the  answer  implied  a 
mere  negative  or  affirmative,  it  was  communicated  in  the 
newspaper  by  a  simple  yes  or  720.  The  names  of  address 
more  commonly  assumed  were  Mr.  William  Middleton,  or 
Mr.  John  Fretly,  and  the  more  common  places  of  address 
were  the  bar  of  the  Somerset  Coffee-house  as  stated  above, 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  43. — As  instances  of  these  signals  of  different 
kinds  the  reader  may  accept  the  following-,  taken  from  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser according*  to  their  dates. 

August  12,  1771.  A  Correspondent  may  rest  assured  that  his  directions 
ever  have  been,  and  ever  will  be,  strictly  attended  to. 


Septembei 

13. 

C. 

17. 

C. 

21. 

c. 

27. 

c. 

October 

19. 

c. 

November 

5. 

c. 

8. 

c. 

12. 

Vindex  shall  be  considered. 

21. 

Die   quibus   in   terris,  et   mihi   cris    magnu* 
Apollo. 

26. 

Quid  rides?  de  TE  fabula  narratur. 

28. 

Received. 

30. 

dicere  verum 

Quid  vetat? 

December 

5. 

Jam  nova  progenies  coclo  dimittitur  alto 

6. 

Received. 

Quis  te  magne  cato  taciturn? 

Infandum,  regina!  jubes  renovarc  dolorem 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *27 

•f  the  New  Exchange,  or  Munday's  in  Maiden  Lane,  the 
waiters  of  which  were  occasionallv  feed1  for  their  punctua- 
lity. But  these  too  were  varied  for  other  names  and  places 
of  abode  as  circumstances  might  dictate. 

By  what  conveyance  Junius  obtained  his  letters  and  par- 
cels from  the  places  at  which  they  were  left  for  him  is  not 
very  clearly  ascertained.  From  the  passage  quoted  from  his 
Private  Letter,  No.  10,  as  also  from  the  express  dt-claration 
in  the  Dedication  to  his  own  edition  of  his  letters,  that  he 
was  at  that  time  "  the  sole  depository  of  his  own  secret,"  it 
should  seem  that  he  had  also  been  uniformly  his  own  mes- 
senger: yet  in  his  Private  Letter  of  January  18th,  1772,  he 
observes,  "the  gentleman  who  transacts  the  convevan;  ing 
part  of  our  correspondence  tells  me  there  was  much  difficul- 
ty last  night2."  In  truth  the  difficulty,  and  danger  of  his. 
constantly  performing  his  own  errand  must  have  been  ex- 
treme; and  it  is  more  reasonable  therefore  to  suppose  that 
he  employed  some  person  on  whom  he  could  place  an  im- 
plicit reliance;  while  to  avoid  the  apparent  contradiction  be- 
tween such  a  fact  and  that  of  his  affirming  that  he  was  the  sole 
depositary  of  his  own  secret,  it  is  only  nc  cessary  to  conceive 
at  the  same  time  that  the  person  thus  confidentially  employ- 
ed was  not  entrusted  with  the  full  scope  and  object  of  his 
agency3.  He  sometimes,  as  we  learn  from  his  own  testi- 
mony, employed  a  common  chairman  as  his  messenger4, 
and  perhaps  this,  after  all,  was  the  method  most  usually 
resorted  to. 

That  a  variety  of  schemes  were  invented  and  actually  in 

i  Private  Letter,  No.  39.  2  Private  Letter,  No.  51. 

3  Mr.  Jackson,  the  present  respectable  proprietor  of  the  Ipswich  Jour- 
nal, was  at  this  time  in  the  employment  of  the  late  Mr.  Woodfall,  and  he 
observed  to  the  editor,  in  September  last,  that  he  once  saw  a  tall  Gentle- 
man dressed  in  a  light  coat  with  bag  and  sword,  throw  into  the  office  door 
openingin  Ivy  Lane,  a  letter  of  Junius's,  which  he  picked  up  and  imme- 
diately followed  the  bearer  of  it  into  St.  Paul's  Church-yard,  where  lie  got 
into  a  hackney  coach  and  drove  off  But  whether  this  was  '•  the  gentle- 
man who  transacted  the  conveyancing  part"  or  Juki  us  himself,  it  is  im- 
possible to  ascertain. 

4  See  Private  Letters,  No.  58  and  65  note. 


#28  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

motion  to  detect  him  there  can  be  no  doubt;  but  the  extreme 
vigilance  he  at  all  times  evinced,  and  the  honourable  for- 
bearance of  Mr.  Woodfall,  enabled  him  to  baffle  every  effort, 
and  to  persevere  in  his  concealment  to  the  last.  "  Your  letter," 
says  he  in  one  of  his  private  notes,  "  was  twice  refused  last 
night,  and  the  waiter  as  often  attempted  to  see  the  person 
who  sent  for  it1." 

On  another  occasion  his  alarm  was  excited  in  consequence 
of  various  letters  addressed  to  him  at  the  printing-office, 
with  a  view  as  he  suspected  of  leading  to  a  disclosure  either 
of  his  person  or  abode.  "  I  return  you,"  says  he  in  reply, 
**  the  letters  you  sent  me  yesterday.  A  man  who  can  write 
neither  common  English,  nor  spell,  is  hardly  worth  attend- 
ing to.  It  is  probably  a  trap  for  me:  I  should  be  glad  to  know 
what  the  fool  means.  If  he  writes  again,  open  his  letter,  and 
if  it  contain  any  thing  worth  my  knowing,  send  it:  otherwise 
not.  Instead  of  l  C.  in  the  usual  place'  say  only  '  a  letter' 
when  you  have  occasion  to  write  to  me  again.  I  shall  under- 
stand you2." 

Some  apprehension  he  seems  to  have  suffered,  as  already 
observed,  from  the  impertinent  curiosity  of  Svvinney;  but 
his  resentment  was  chiefly  roused  by  that  of  David  Garrick, 
who  appears  from  his  own  account,  and  from  intelligence  on 
which  he  fully  relied,  to  have  been  pertinacious  in  his  at- 
tempts to  discover  him.  For  three  weeks  or  a  month,  he 
could  scarcely  ever  write  to  Mr.  Woodfall  without  caution- 
ing him  to  be  specially  on  his  guard  against  Garrick:  and 
under  this  impression  alone,  he  once  changed  his  address3. 
He  wrote  to  Garrick  a  private  note  of  severe  castigation 
through  the  medium  of  the  printer,  which  the  latter,  from 
an  idea  that  it  was  unnecessarily  acrimonious,  resubmitted 
to  his  consideration  with  a  view  of  dissuading  him  from 
sending4  it,  upon  which  our  author  desired  him  to  tell  Gar- 
rick personally,  to  desist  or  he  would  be  amply  revenged 
upon  him.  "  As  it  is  important,"  says  he,  "  to  deter  him 

J  Private  Letter,  No.  98.  2  Id.  No.  12.  3  Id.  No  41. 

*  Compare  Private  Letter,  No.  41.  with  No.  43.  The  letter  to  Garrick 
will  be  found  in  the  former  of  these. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *29 

from  meddling,  I  desire  you  will  tell  him  I  am  aware  of  his 
practices,  and  will  certainly  be  revenged  if  he  does  not  de- 
sist. An  appeal  to  the  public  from  Junius  would  destroy 
him1." 

It  is  not  impossible  to  form  a  plausible  guess  at  the  age 
of  Junius,  from  a  passage  in  one  of  his  Private  Letters;  an 
enquiry,  which,  though  otherwise  of  little  or  no  consequence, 
is  rendered  in  some  measure  important,  as  a  test  to  deter- 
mine the  validity  of  the  claims  that  have  been  laid  to  his 
writings  by  different  candidates  or  their  friends.  The  pas- 
sage referred  to  occurs  in  his  letter  to  Woodfall,  dated  Nov* 
27,  1771;  "  after  long  experience  of  the  world"  says  he,  "  I 
affirm  before  God  I  never  knew  a  rogue  who  was  not  un- 
happy2." Now  whea  this  declaration  is  coupled  with  the 
two  facts,  that  he  made  it  under  the  repeated  promise  and 
intention  of  speedily  disclosing  himself  to  his  correspon- 
dent3, and  that  the  correspondent  thus  schooled,  by  a  moral 
axiom  gleaned  from  his  own  u  long"  experience  of  the  world," 
was  at  this  very  time  something  more  than  thirty  years  of 
age;  it  seems  absurd  to  suppose  that  Junius  could  be  much 
less  than  fifty,  or  that  he  affected  an  age  he  had  not  actually 
attained. 

There  is  another  point  in  the  history  of  his  life,  during 
his  appearance  as  a  public  writer,  which  for  the  same  reason 
must  not  be  suffered  to  pass  by  without  observation,  although 
otherwise  it  might  be  scarcely  entitled  to  notice;  and  that  is, 
that  during  a  great  part  of  this  time,  from  January,  1769,  to 
January,  1772,  he  uniformly  resided  in  London,  or  its  im- 
mediate vicinity,  and  that  he  never  quitted  his  stated  habi*- 
tation  for  a  longer  period  than  a  few  weeks.  This  too,  we 
may  collect  from  his  private  correspondence,  compared  with 
his  public  labours.  No  man  but  he,  who,  with  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  our  author's  style,  undertakes  to  examine  all 
the  numbers  of  the  Public  Advertiser  for  the  three  years  in 
question,  can  have  any  idea  of  the  immense  fatigue  and  trou- 
ble he  submitted  to  by  the  composition  of  other  letters, 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  43.  2  Id.  No.  44.  3  Id.  No.  41. 


*30  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

under  other  signatures,  in  order  to  support  the  pre-eminent 
pretensions  and  character  of  Junius,  attacked  as  it  was  by  a 
multiplicity  of  writers  in  favour  of  administration,  to  whom, 
as  Junius,  he  did  not  chuse  to  make  any  reply  whatever. 
Surely  Junius  himself,  when  he  first  undertook  the  office  of 
public  political  censor,  could  by  no  means  fort  see  the  labour 
with  which  he  was  about  to  encumber  himself.  And  instead 
of  wondering  that  he  should  have  disappeared  at  the  dis- 
tance of  about  five  vears,  we  ought  much  rather  to  be  sur- 
prised that  he  should  have  persevered  through  half  this 
period  with  a  spirit  at  once  so  indefatigable  and  invincible. 
Junius  had  no  time  for  remote  excursions,  nor  often  for 
relaxation,  even  in  the  vicinity  of  the  metropolis  itself. 

Yet  from  his  Private  Letters  we  could  almost  collect  a 
journal  of  his  absences,  if  not  an  itinerary  of  his  little  tours: 
for  he  does  not  appear  to  have  left  London  at  any  time 
without  some  notice  to  the  printer,  either  of  his  intention, 
or  of  the  fact  itself  upon  his  return  home;  independently  of 
which  the  frequency  and  regularity  of  his  correspondence 
seldom  allowed  of  distant  travel.  "  I  have  been  out  of  town," 
says  he,  in  his  letter  of  Nov.  8,  1769,  '■'■for  three  weeks;  and 
though  I  got  your  last,  could  not  conveniently  answer  it1."— 
On  another  occasion,  M  I  have  been  some  days  in  the  coun- 
try, and  could  not  conveniently  send  for  your  letter  until 
this  night2:"  and  again,  "  I  must  see  proof-sheets  of  the  De- 
dication and. Preface;  and,  these,  if  at  all,  I  must  see  before 
the  end  of  next  week3."  In  like  manner,  "  I  want  rest  most 
severely,  and  am  going  to  find  it  in  the  country  for  a  few 
days":' 

The  last  political  letter  that  ever  issued  under  the  signa- 
ture of  Junius  was  addressed  to  Lord  Camden.  It  appeared 
in  the  Public  Advertiser  for  Jan.  21,  1772,  and  followed 
the  publication  of  his  long  and  elaborate  address  to  Lord 
Mansfield  upon  the  illegal  bailing  of  Eyre;  and  was  designed 
to  simulate  the  noble  earl  to  a  renewal  of  the  contest  which 


1  Private  Letter,  No.  11.  3  Id.  No.  45. 

8  W.  No.  7.  4  Id.  No.  43. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *31 

\ 

he  had  commenced  with  the  chief  justice  towards  the  close 
of  the  preceding  session  of  parliament.  It  possesses  the  pe- 
culiarity of  being  the  only  encomiastic  letter  that  ever  fell 
from  his  pen  under  the  signature  of  Junius.  Yet  the  pane- 
gyric bestowed  was  not  for  the  mere  purpose  of  instigating 
Lord  Camden  to  the  attack  in  question.  There  is  sufficient 
evidence  in  his  Private  Letters  that  Junius  had  a  very  high, 
as  well  as  a  very  just  opinion  of  the  integrity  of  this  noble- 
man; and  an  ardent  desire  that  the  estimate  he  had  formed 
of  his  integrity  should  be  known  to  the  world  at  large.  In 
the  whole  course  of  his  political  creed  th«  re  seems  to  have 
been  but  one  point  upon  which  they  differed,  and  that  was 
the  doctrine  assented  to  by  his  Lordship,  that  the  crown 
possesses  a  power  in  case  of  very  urgent  necessity,  of  sus- 
pending the  operation  of  an  act  of  the  legislature.  It  is  a 
mere  speculative  doctrine,  and  Junius  only  incidentally  al- 
luded to  it  in  a  letter  upon  a  very  different  subject1.  The 
disagreement  upon  this  point  seems  eagerly  to  have  been 
caught  at,  however,  by  another  correspondent  in  the  Public 
Advertiser,  who  chose  the  signature  of  Scsevola,  apparently 
for  the  express  purpose  of  involving  the  political  satirist  in 
a  dispute  with  his  lordship.  "  Scsevola,"  observes  he  in  a 
private  letter,  M  I  see  is  determined  to  make  me  an  enemy 
to  Lord  Camden.  If  it  be  not  wilful  malice,  I  beg  you  will 
signify  to  him,  that  when  I  originally  mentioned  Lord  Cam- 
den's declaration  about  the  corn  bill,  it  was  without  any 
view  of  discussing  that  doctrine,  and  only  as  an  instance  of 
a  singular  opinion  maintained  by  a  man  of  great  learning 
and  integrity.  Such  an  instance  was  necessary  to  the  plan 
of  my  letter2."  And  again,  shortly  afterwards,  finding  that 
the  communication  had  not  been  received  as  k  ought  to 
have  been,  "  I  should  not  trouble  you  or  myself  about  that 
blockhead  Scsevola,  but  that  his  absurd  fiction  of  my  being 
Lord  Camden's  enemy  has  done  harm.  Every  fool  can  do 
mischief,  therefore  signify  to  him  what  I  said3."  Not  satis- 

1  Letter  lix.  Vol.  II.  p.  87.  3  Id.  No.  46. 

2  Private  Letter,  No.  45. 


-*32  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

fied  however  with  this  hint  to  the  printer,  he  chose,  at  the 
same  time,  under  the  subordinate  character  of  Philo-Junius, 
to  settle  the  point,  and  preclude  all  possibility  of  altercation 
by  an  address  to  the  public,  that  should  dexterously  mark 
out  this  single  difference  in  a  mere  speculative  opinion;  and 
while  it  amply  defended  the  view  he  had  taken  of  the  sub- 
ject, should  evince  such  an  evident  approbation  of  his  Lord- 
ship's general  conduct,  as  could  not  fail  of  being  gratifying 
to  him.  This  letter  appeared  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  Oct. 
15,  17711. 

Lord  Camden,  however,  was  not  induced  by  this  earnest 
attempt  am!  last  letter  of  Junius  to  renew  his  attack  upon 
Lord  Mansfield;  yet  this  was  not  the  reason,  or  at  least  not 
the  sole  or  primary  reason  for  Junius's  discontinuing  to 
write.  It  has  already  been  observed,  that  so  early  as  July, 
1769,  he  began  to  entertain  thoughts  of  dropping  a  charac- 
ter and  signature  which  must  have  cost  him  a  heavy  series 
of  labour,  and  perhaps  not  unfrequently  exposed  him  to  no 
small  peril.  M  1  really  doubt,"  says  he,  "  whether  I  shall 
write  any  more  under  this  signature.  I  am  weary  of  attack- 
ing a  set  of  brutes,  whose  writings  are  really  too  dull  to  fur- 
nish me  with  even  the  materials  of  contention,  and  whose 
measures  are  too  gross  and  direct  to  be  the  subject  of  argu- 
ment, or  to  require  illustration2." 

In  perfect  consonance  with  this  declaration,  in  his  reply 
to  the  printer,  who  had  offered  him  half  the  profits  of  the 
letters  at  that  time  published  under  his  own  correction,  or 
an  equal  sum  for  the  use  of  any  public  institution  he  should 
chuse  to  name,  he  makes  the  following  remark,  of  which  a 
part  has  been  already  quoted  on  another  occasion:  M  As  for 
myself,  be  assured  that  I  am  far  above  all  pecuniary  views, 
and  no  other  person,  I  think,  has  any  claim  to  share  with 
you.  Make  the  most  of  it  therefore,  and  let  your  views  in 
life  be  directed  to  a  solid,  however  moderate,  independence: 
without  it  no  man  can  be  happy,  nor  even  honest.  If  I  saw 
any  prospect  of  uniting  the  city  once  more,  I  would  readily 

1  Letter  lx.  Vol.  II.  p.  97.  2  Private  Letter,  No.  5 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #33 

continue  to  labour  in  the  vineyard.  Whenever  Mr.  Wilkes 
can  tell  me  that  such  an  union  is  in  prospect,  he  shall  hear 
of  me.  §>uod  si  quis  existimat  me  aut  voluntate  esse  mutata, 
aut  debilitatd  virtute,  aut  ammo  fracto,  vehementer  errat1." 

Even  so  long  afterwards  as  January  19,  1773,  in  the  very 
last  letter  we  have  any  certain  knowledge  he  ever  addressed 
to  Mr.  Woodfall,  he  urges  precisely  the  same  motives  for 
his  continuing  to  desist.  "  I  have  seen  the  signals  thrown 
out  for  your  old  friend  and  correspondent.  Be  assured  I  have 
had  good  reason  for  not  complying  with  them.  In  the  pre- 
sent state  of  things,  if  I  were  to  write  again,  I  must  be  as 
silly  as  any  of  the  horned  cattle  that  run  mad  through  the 
city,  or  as  any  of  your  wise  aldermen.  I  meant  the  cause  and 
the  public:  both  are  given  up.  I  feel  for  the  honour  of  this 
country,  when  I  see  that  there  are  not  ten  men  in  it  who 
will  unite  and  stand  together  upon  any  one  question.  But  it 
is  all  alike  vile  and  contemptible.  Tou  have  never  flinched 
that  I  know  of:  I  shall  always  rejoice  to  hear  of  your  pros- 
perity. If  you  have  any  thing  to  communicate  of  moment  to 
yourself,  you  may  use  the  last  address  and  give  a  hint2." 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  59.  "  Bat  if  any  one  believes  me  to  be  changed 
in  will,  weakened  in  integrity,  or  broken  in  courage,  he  errs  grossly." 

2  Private  Letter,  No.  63.  The  signals  here  referred  to  were  thrown 
out  on  the  very  morning  of  the  day  on  which  this  letter  was  written,  and 
consisted  of  the  following  Latin  quotation,  inserted  in  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser for  January  19,  1773,  among  the  other  answers  to  correspondent*. 
Iterumque,iteminque  monebo.  The  printer,  within  a  few  weeks  afterwards, 
availed  himself  of  the  liberty  of  making  a  communication  to  Junius  by 
the  last  address,  and  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  March  8,  gave  the  fol- 
lowing hint:  "The  letter  from  an  old  friend  and  correspondent, 
dated  January  19,  came  safe  to  hand,  and  his  directions  are  strictly  fol- 
lowed. Shiod  si  quis  existimat  aut,  he.  The  quotation  is  peculiarly  happy: 
for  it  is  not  only  a  copy  of  what  Junius  had  cited  himself  in  his  last  Pri- 
vate Letter  but  one,  and  was  hence  sure  to  attract  his  attention,  but  is 
a  smart  replication  to  the  passage  in  the  letter  it  immediately  refers  to, 
"You  have  never  flinched  that  I  know  of."  The  subject  of  some  part  of 
the  communication  at  this  time  made  by  the  printer  to  Junius,  the  edi- 
tor has  been  able  to  discover,  by  having  accidentally  found  among  Mr. 
Woodfall's  papers,  and  in  his  own  hand-writing,  a  rough  draft  of  one  of 
the  three  letters  of  which  it  appears  to  have  consisted.  This  letter  the 
reader  will  meet  with  in  the  private  correspondence,  arranged  according- 

Vol.  I.  *  E  t* 


*34  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

In  effect  from  the  dissolution  of  the  consolidated  Whig 
party  upon  the  death  of  George  Grenville,  the  absurd  divi- 
sions in  ihe  Bill  of  Rights  Society,  and  the  political  separa- 
tions in  the  city,  our  author  had  much  reason  to  despair  of 
the  cause  in  which  he  had  so  manfully  engaged. 

To  the  moral  character  of  Junius  this  letter  is  of  more 
value  than  all  the  popular  addresses  he  ever  composed  in  his 
life.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  it  to  flow  from  the  affecta- 
tion of  an  honesty  which  did  not  exist  in  his  heart.  The  cir- 
cumstances under  which  it  was  sent  altogether  prohibit  such 
an  idea:  unknown  as  he  was,  and  unknown  as  he  had  now 
determined  to  continue,  to  his  correspondent,  there  was  no 
adequate  motive  for  his  assuming  the  semblance  of  an  inte- 

to  its  date,  which  is  March  7,  1773,  the  day  antecedent  to  the  public  notice 
given  in  the  Public  Advertiser  as  above.  Among  the  answers  to  corres- 
pondents March  -0,  we  find  another  signal  of  the  very  same  kind  in  the 
following  terms,  "  Ant  voiuntateesse  mutata,"  and  in  the  same  place  March 
29,  a  third  ensign  under  the  following  form,  "  Aut  debilitata  virtute;"  both 
of  which  it  will  be  observed,  upon  a  comparison,  are  verbal  continuations 
of  Junius's  own  quotation,  and  hence,  identify  with  double  force  theper- 
sonto  whom  they  relate.  In  the  Public  Advertiser  of  April  7,  we  find  the 
following  signal  of  a  similar  description,  and  it  is  the  last  we  have  been 
able  to  discover,  "  Die  quibus  in  ttrria."  It  is  probable  that  these  all  re- 
lated to  matters  of  a  personal  concern,  upon  which,  by  t'.r  above  private 
letter,  the  printer  had  still  leave  to  address  his  correspondent:  at  least 
there  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  Juxiusever  broke  through  the  silence 
upon  which  he  so  inflexibly  determined  on  January  19,  or  consented  to 
re-appear  before  the  public  in  any  character  whatever.  There  were  some 
very  excellent  letters  signed  Atticus  that  appeared  in  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser between  the  dates  of  June  26,  1772,  and  October  14,  1773,  and  exhi- 
bit much  of  our  author's  style,  spirit,  and  sentiments;  and  which,  hence, 
by  some  tolerable  judges,  have  been  actually  ascribed  to  him:  but  for  va- 
rious reasons,  independently  of  that  afforded  by  the  above  private  letter, 
the  editor  is  convinced  they  are  not  the  production  of  Junius.  The  talents 
they  afford  proof  of,  though  considerable,  are  inferior;  they  contain  attacks 
upon  some  statesmen  who  were  never  attacked  by  Junius;  and  it  is  well 
known  from  the  following  notice  inserted  among  the  addresses  to  corres- 
pondents in  the  Public  Advertiser  for  June  19,  1773,  as  well  as  from  other 
facts,  that  there  was  at  this  period,  and  had  been  for  some  time  past,  ano- 
ther writer  in  this  journal  who  assumed  the  name  of  Atticus.  "  Some  cir- 
cumstances render  it  necessary  that  the  printer  should  communicate  a  line 
to  Atticus,  not  his  old  Corespondent." 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *35 

grity  which  he  felt  not,  and  which  did  not  fairly  belong  to 
him.  It  was,  it  must  have  been,  a  pure,  disintereste!  testi- 
monial of  private  esteem  and  public  patriotism,  consentane- 
ous with  the  uniform  tenor  both  of  his  open  and  his  confi- 
dential history,  and  conscientiously  developing  the  real  cause 
of  his  secession. 

In  truth  it  must  have  been,  as  he  himself  states  it,  insanity, 
to  have  persisted  any  longer  in  any  thing  like  a  regular  at- 
tack; Lord  Camden  had  declined  to  act  upon  his  suggestion; 
the  great  phalanx  of  the  Whig  party  was  broken  up  by  the 
death  of  Mr.  George  Grenville;  the  vanity  and  extreme 
jealousy  of  Oliver  and  Home  had  introduced  the  most  acri- 
monious divisions  into  the  society  for  suDporting  the  Bill  of 
Rights;  and  the  leading  patriots  of  the  city  had  so  intermix- 
ed their  own  private  interests,  and  their  own  private  squab- 
bles with  the  public  cause,  as  to  render  this  cause  itself 
contemptible  in  the  eye  of  the  people  at  large.  He  had 
already  tried,  but  in  vain,  to  awaken  the  different  contend- 
ing parties  to  a  sense  of  better  and  more  honourable  motives; 
to  induce  them  to  forego  their  selfish  and  individual  disputes, 
and  to  make  a  common  sacrifice  of  them  upon  the  altar  of 
the  constitution1.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  so  small  were  his 
expectations  of  success,  so  mean  his  opinion  of  the  preten- 
sions of  most  of  the  leading  demagogues  of  the  day  to  a  real 
love  of  their  country,  and  so  grossly  had  he  himself  been 
occasionally  misrepresented  by  them,  that  in  his  confidential 
intercourse  he  bade  his  correspondent  beware  of  entrusting 
himself  to  them.  "  Nothing,"  says  he,  "  can  be  more  ex- 
press than  my  declaration  against  long  parliaments:  try  Mr. 
Wilkes  once  more,  (who  xvas  in  private  possession  of  his 
sentiments  upon  this  subject2/)  speak  for  me  in  a  most 
friendly  but  firm  tone,  that  I  will  not  submit  to  be  any 
longer  aspersed.  Between  ourselves,  let  me  recommend  it  to 
you  to  be  much  upon  your  guard  with  patriots3." 

1  See  Junius,  Letter  nx.  Vol.  II.  p.  8/,  and  private  Letter,  No.  65. 

2  See  Private  Letter,  No.  66.  3  Id.  No.  44. 


*36  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

With  his  public  address  to  the  people,  therefore,  in  Letter 
Lix.  he  seems  in  the  first  instance  to  have  resolved  upon 
closing  his  labours  at  least  under  the  character  of  Junius, 
provided  no  beneficial  effect  were  likely  to  result  from  it, 
and  as  the  printer  had  expressed  to  him  an  earnest  desire  of 
publishing  a  genuine  edition  of  his  letters,  in  a  collective 
form,  in  consequence  of  a  variety  of  incorrect  and  spurious 
editions  at  that  time  circulating  through  the  nation,  he 
seems  to  have  thought  that  a  consent  to  such  a  plan  would 
afford  him  a  good  ostensible  motive  for  putting  a  finish  to 
his  public  career;  and  on  this  account  he  not  only  acceded 
to  the  proposal,  but  undertook  to  superintend  it  as  far  as  his 
invisibility  might  allow  him;  as  also  to  add  a  few  notes,  as 
well  as  a  dedication  and  preface. 

Nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  idea  entertained  by 
some  writers,  that  Junius  himself  was  the  previous  editor 
of  one  or  two  of  these  irregular  editions,  and  especially  of 
an  edition  published  but  a  short  time  anterior  to  his  own, 
audaciously  enough  entitled  "  The  genuine  letters  of  Junius, 
to  which  are  prefixed,  anecdotes  oj  the  author1;"  a  pamphlet 
in  which  the  anonymous  anecdotist  takes  it  for  granted, 
from  his  very  outset,  that  Junius  and  Edmund  Burke  were 
the  same  person,  and  then  proceeds  to  reason  concerning 
the  former,  from  the  known  or  acknowledged  works  of  the 
latter. 

It  was  not  till  the  appearance  of  Newberry's  edition,  with 
which  it  is  not  pretended  that  our  author  had  any  concern, 
that  even  Woodfall  himself  had  conceived  an  idea  of  the 
propriety  of  collecting  these  letters,  and  publishing  them  in 
an  edition  strictly  genuine,  in  consequence  of  the  numerous 
blunders  by  which  the  common  editions  were  deformed;  of 
these  Newberry's  was,  perhaps,  the  freest  from  mistakes: 
yet  Newberry's  had  so  many,  that  our  author,  upon  receiv- 
ing a  copy  of  it,  addressed  a  note  to  Woodfall,  begging  him 
to   hint  to  Newberry,  that  as  he  had  thought  proper  to 

1  See  Mr.  Chalmers's  Appendix  to  the  Supplemental  Apology,  &c. 
p.  24. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #37 

reprint  his  letters,  he  ought  at  Last  to  have  taken  care  to 
have  corrected  the  errata;  adding  at  the  same  time,  "  I  did 
not  expect  more  than  the  life  of  a  newspaper;  but  if  this 
man  will  keep  me  alive,  let  me  live  without  being  offensive1." 

His  answer  upon  Woodfall's  application  to  him  for  leave 
to  reprint  his  letters  collectively,  and  subject  to  his  own  re- 
visal,  was  as  follows:  "  I  can  have  no  manner  of  objection  to 
your  reprinting  my  letters  if  you  think  it  will  answer,  which 
I  believe  it  might,  before  Newberry  appeared.  If  you  de- 
termine to  do  it,  give  me  a  hint,  and  I  will  send  you  more 
errata  (indeed  they  are  innumerable)  and  perhaps  a  pre- 
face2." It  was  on  this  occasion  he  added,  as  conceiving  it 
might  afford  him  a  proper  opportunity  for  a  general  close 
of  the  character  though  so  early  in  his  correspondence  under 
the  name  of  Junius,  as  July  1769,  "I  really  doubt  whether 
I  shall  write  any  more  under  this  signature;  I  am  weary  of 
attacking  a  set  of  brutes,  &c3."  In  answer  to  Woodfall's 
next  letter  upon  the  same  subject  he  observes,  "  Do  with 
my  letters  exactly  as  you  please.  I  should  think  that  to 
make  a  better  figure  than  Newberry,  some  others  of  my 
letters  may  be  added;  and  so  throw  out  a  hint  that  you  have 
reason  to  suspect  they  are  by  the  same  author.  If  you  adopt 
this  plan  I  shall  point  out  those  which  I  would  recommend, 
for  you  know  I  do  not,  nor  indeed  have  1  time  to  give  equal 
care  to  them  a//4." 

The  plan  for  publication,  however,  though  it  commenced 
thus  early,  was  not  matured  till  October  1771:  whea  it  was 
determined  that  the  work  should  comprise  all  the  letters 
which  had  passed  under  the  signatures  of  Junius  and 
Philo-Junius  to  this  period  inclusively,  and  be  occasionally 
enriched  by  a  selection  of  other  letters  under  a  variety  of 
other  signatures,  which,  independently  of  that  of  Philo- 
Junius,  our  author,  as  has  been  observed  already,  not  un- 
frequently  employed  to  explain  what  required  explanation, 
or  defend  what  demanded  vindication,  and  which  he  him- 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  4.      2  Id.  No.  5.      3  Id.  No.  5.      4  Id.  No.  7- 


*38  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

self  thought  sufficiently  correct  to  associate  with  his  more 
laboured  productions.  In  the  prosecution  of  this  intention 
however,  he  still  made  the  two  following  alterations.  In- 
stead of  closing  the  regular  series  of  letters  possessing  the 
signature  of  Junius  with  that  dated  October  5,  17711,  upon 
the  subject  of  "the  unhappy  differences,"  as  he  there  calls 
them,  "  which  had  arisen  among  the  friends  of  the  people, 
and  divided  them  from  each  other" — he  added  five  others 
which  the  events  of  the  day  had  impelled  him  to  write 
during  the  reprinting  of  the  letters,  notwithstanding  the 
intention  he  had  expressed  of  offering  nothing  further  un- 
der this  signature.  And  instead  of  introducing  the  explana- 
tory letters  written  under  other  signatures,  he  confined 
himself,  in  order  that  the  work  might  be  published  before 
the  ensuing  session  of  parliament,  to  three  justificatory 
papers  alone:  the  first,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Friend  of 
Junius,"  containing  an  answer  to  UA  Barrister  at  Law;" 
the  second  an  anonymous  declaration  upon  certain  points 
on  which  his  opinion  had  been  mistaken  or  misrepresented; 
and  the  third  an  extract  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Wilkes,  drawn 
up  for  the  purpose  of  being  laid  before  the  Bill  of  Rights 
Society,  and  vindicating  himself  from  the  charge  of  having 
written  in  favour  of  long  parliaments  and  rotten  boroughs. 
This  last  however  was  furnished,  not  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  but 
from  his  own  notes;  "  you  shall  have  the  extract"  says  he, 
"  to  go  into  the  second  volume:  it  will  be  a  short  one2." 

1  Letter  mx.  Vol.  II.  p.  ST. 

2  Private  Letter,  No.  45.  The  reader  will  readily  pardon,  and  perhaps 
thank  us,  for  pointing  out  to  his  particular  attention  the  following  exqui- 
site paragraph  with  which  the  above  letter  closes,  but  which  formed  no 
part  of  it  as  originally  addressed  to  Mr.  Wilkes.  It  refers  to  an  able  argu- 
ment that  an  excision  of  the  rotten  boroughs  from  the  representative 
system  might  perhaps  produce  more  mischief  than  benefit  to  the  consti- 
tution. "The  man,  %\ho  fairly  and  completely  answers  this  argument, 
shall  have  my  thanks  and  my  applause.  My  heart  is  already  with  him  — 
I  am  ready  to  be  converted.— I  admire  his  morality,  and  would  gladly 
subscribe  to  the  articles  of  his  faith — Grateful,  as  I  am,  to  the  coon 
being,  whose  bounty  has  imparted  to  me  this  reasoning  intellect,  what- 
ever it  is,  I  hold  mj  self  proportionally  indebted  to  him,  from   whose 

enlightened 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *39 

Of  the  five  letters  added  after  he  meant  to  have  closed, 
and  had  actually  begun  to  reprint  his  series,  four  of  them 
are  either  expressly  addressed  to  Lord  Mansfield,  or  inci- 
dentally relate  to  him,  in  consequence  of  his  having  illegally 
(as  it  was  contended)  admitted  a  felon  of  the  name  of  John 
Eyre  to  bail,  who,  although  possessing  a  fortune  of  nearly 
thirty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  had  stolen  a  quantity  of 
paper  in  quires  out  of  one  of  the  public  offices  at  Guildhall, 
and  was  caught  in  the  very  theft.  The  other  letter  is  ad- 
dressed to  his  steady  object  of  inveterate  hatred,  the  Duke 
of  Grafton,  upon  the  defeat  of  his  attempt  to  transfer  the 
Duke  of  Portland's  estate  in  Cumberland,  consisting  of 
what  had  formerly  been  crown  lands,  to  Sir  James  Lowther, 
in  order  to  assist  the  latter  in  securing  his  election  for  this 
county. 

Yet  such  was  his  anxiety  to  get  this  work  completed  and 
published  before  the  winter  session  of  parliament,  that  he 
was  ready  to  sacrifice  the  appearance  of  the  whole  of  these 
additional  letters,  even  that  containing  his  elaborate  accusa- 
tion of  Lord  Mansfield,  and  which  he  acknowledged  to 
have  cost  him  enormous  pains,  rather  than  that  it  should 
be  delayed  beyond  this  period.  "  I  am  truly  concerned," 
says  he  in  a  private  letter  dated  January  20,  1772,  "  to  see 
that  the  publication  of  the  book  is  so  long  delayed.  It  ought 
to  have  appeared  before  the  meeting  of  parliament.  By  no 
means  would  I  have  you  insert  this  long  letter,  if  it  make 
more  than  the  difference  of  two  days  in  the  publication. 
Believe  me,  the  delay  is  a  real  injury  to  the  cause1." 

The  difficulties,  however,  of  sending  proofs  and  revises 
forward  and  backward  were  so  considerable,  that  the  anxie- 
ty of  the  author  was  not  gratified:  parliament  met,  but  the 

enlightened  understanding  another  ray  of  knowledge  communicates  to 
mine.  But  neither  should  I  think  the  most  exalted  faculties  of  the  human 
mind,  a  gift  worthy  of  the  divinity;  nor  any  assistance,  in  the  improve- 
ment of  them,  a  subject  of  gratitude  to  my  fellow-creature,  if  I  were  not 
satisfied,  that  really  to  inform  the  understanding  corrects  and  enlarges 
the  heart." 

1  Private  Letter,  No.  51, 


*49  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

book  was  not  published.  Junius  became  extremely  impa- 
tient; yet  still,  in  the  most  earnest  terms  pressed  its  publica- 
tion before-  Alderman  Sawbridge's  motion  in  favour  of 
triennial  parliaments  which  was  to  be  brought  forward  in 
the  beginning  of  March.  "  Surely,"  says  he,  in  his  private 
letter  of  February  221,  M  you  have  misjudged  it  very  much 
about  the  book.  I  could  not  have  conceived  it  possible  that 
you  would  protract  the  publication  so  long.  At  this  time, 
particularly  before  Mr.  Sawbridge's  motion,  it  would  have 
been  of  singular  use.  You  have  trifled  too  long  with  the 
public  expectation:  at  a  certain  point  of  time  the  appetite 
palls:  I  fear  you  have  lost  the  season.  The  book,  I  am  sure, 
will  lose  the  greatest  part  of  the  effect  I  expected  from  it. — ? 
But  I  have  done." 

Ht-  was  soon  however  consoled  by  intelligence  from  his 
friend  Woodfall  that,  unduly  as  the  book  had  been  post- 
poned, it  was  not  for  want  of  any  exertions  of  his  own;  and 
that  late  as  the  season  was,  it  would  still  precede  the  ex- 
pected motion  of  Alderman  Sawbridge2.  He,  in  consequence, 
replied  as  follows:  "  I  do  you  the  justice  to  believe  that  the 
delav  has  been  unavoidable.  The  expedient  you  propose  of 
printing  the  Dedication  and  Preface  in  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser is  unadviseable.  The  attention  of  the  public  would 
then  be  quite  lost  to  the  book  itself.  Your  rivals  will  be  dis- 
appointed: nobody  will  apply  to  them,  when  they  can  be  sup- 
plied at  the  fountain-head. — All  I  can  now  say  is  make  haste 
with  the  book3." 

The  Dedication,  Preface,  and  the  materials  for  his  notes 
were  all  finished  about  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  No- 
vember (1771).  The  letters  at  large,  excepting  the  first  two 
sheets  which  were  revised  by  the  author  himself,  were  from 
the  difficulty  of  conveyance  entrusted  to  the  correction  of 
Mr.  Woodfall.  The  Dedication  and  Preface  were 4  confided 


IYivate  Letter,  No.  55. 

2  The  letters  were  actually  published  March  3,  and  Alderman  Saw- 
bridge's  motion  discussed  the  ensuing  day — which  motion,  however,  was 
lost  by  a  majority  of  251  against  83. 

3  Private  Letter,  No.  56.  *  Id.  No.  40. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *41 

to  the  correction  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  with  whose  attention  he 
expresses  himself  well  pleased.  "  When  you  see  Mr. 
Wilkes,"  says  he  in  a  note  of  February  29,  1772,  "pray 
return  him  my  thanks  for  the  trouble  he  has  taken.  I  wish 
he  had  taken  more1:"  intimating  hereby  that  there  were 
still  errors  of  which  he  was  aware,  and  would  have  corrected 
if  possible. 

Yet  though  he  thus  continued  to  adhere  rigidly  to  his  de- 
termination never  again  to  appear  before  the  public  in  his 
full  dress,  or  under  the  signature  of  Junius,  as  he  expresses 
it  in  his  Private  Letter  of  November  8,  1771,  he  did  not 
object  occasionally  to  introduce  his  observations  and  conti- 
nue his  severe  strictures  in  a  looser  and  less  elaborate  form, 
and  under  some  appellative  or  other,  that  might  not  inter- 
fere with  the  claims  of  Junius  as  a  whole,  as  in  the  case  of 
his  series  of  letters  to  Lord  Barrington,  see  No.  cv,  evil, 
&c.  These,  however,  it  was  not  easy,  in  spite  of  the  charac- 
teristic style  that  still  pervaded  them,  for  the  world  at  large 
to  bring  completely  home  to  the  real  writer,  though  many 
of  them  were  frequently  charged  to  the  account  of  Junius 
by  the  political  critics  of  the  day,  in  different  addresses  to 
the  printer  upon  this  subject. 

To  judge  of  the  moral  and  political  character  of  Junius 
from  his  writings,  as  well  private  as  public,  he  appears  to 
have  been  a  man  of  a  bold  and  ardent  spirit,  tenaciously 
honourable  in  his  personal  connexions,  but  vehement  and 
inveterate  in  his  enmities,  and  quick  and  irritable  in  con- 
ceiving them.  In  his  state  principles  he  was  strictly  consti- 
tutional, excepting  perhaps  upon  the  single  point  of  denying 
the  impeccability  of  the  crown;  in  those  of  religion  he,  at 
least,  ostensibly  professed  an  attachment  to  the  established 
church. 

Of  his  personal  and  private  honour,  however,  we  can  only 
judge  from  his  connexion  with  Mr.  Woodfall.  Yet  this  con- 
nexion is  perhaps  sufficient;  throughout  the  whole  of  it  he 
appears  in  a  light  truly  ingenuous  and  liberal.  "If  nnde* 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  57 

Vot.  I,  *  F 


*42  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY, 

signedly,"  says  he  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  I  should  send  you 
any  thing  you  may  think  dangerous,  judge  for  yourself,  or 
take  any  opinion  you  may  think  proper.  You  cannot  offend 
or  ;;ffiict  me  but  by  hazarding  your  own  safety1."  To  the 
same  effect  in  another  letter,  "  For  my  own  part  I  can  very 
truly  assure  you  that  nothing  would  afflict  me  more  than  to 
have  drawn  you  into  a  personal  danger,  because  it  admits  of 
no  recompense.  A  little  expense  is  not  to  be  regarded,  and 
I  hope  these  papers  have  reimbursed  you.  I  never  will  send 
you  any  thing  that  /  think  dangerous;  but  the  risk  is  yours, 
and  you  must  determine  for  yourself2." 

Upon  another  occasion,  being  sensible  that  he  had  written 
with  an  asperity  that  might  alarm  his  correspondent,  he  again 
begged  him  not  to  print  if  he  apprehended  any  danger;  add- 
ing that,  for  himself  he  should  not  be  offended  at  his  desist- 
ing; and  merely  requesting  that  if  he  did  not  chuse  to  take 
the  risk  he  would  transmit  the  paper  as  sent  to  him,  to  a 
printer  who  was  well  known  to  be  less  cautious  than  him- 
self. u  The  inclosed,"  says  he,  in  one  of  his  notes,  "  is  of 
such  importance,  so  very  material,  that  it  must  be  given  to 
the  public  immediately.  /  will  not  advise,  though  I  think 
you  perfectly  safe.  All  I  say  is  that  I  rely  e.pon  your  care 
to  have  it  printed  either  to-morrow  in  your  own  paper,  or 
to-night  in  the  Pacquet3." — To  the  same  effect  is  the  fol- 
lowing upon  another  occasion.  u  I  hope  you  will  approve 
of  announcing  the  inclosed  Junius  to-morrow,  and  publish- 
ing it  on  Monday.  If,  for  any  reasons  that  do  not  occur  to 
me,  you  should  think  it  unadviseable  to  print  it  as  it  stands, 
I  must  intreat  the  favour  of  you  to  transmit  it  to  Bingley, 
and  satisfy  him  that  it  is  a  real  Junius,  worth  a  North  Bri- 
ton extraordinary.  It  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  have  an 
opportunity  of  altering  any  part  of  it"1." 

Upon  the  printer's  being  menaced  with  a  prosecution  on 
the  part  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  in  consequence  of  the  pub- 
lication of  Junius's  letter  to  him  of  the  date  of  December 

J  Private  Letters,  No.  43.  3  Id.  No.  38. 

2  Id.  No.  33.  *  Id.  No.  34. 


FRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #43 

12y  1769,  accusing  this  nobleman  of  having,  in  the  most  cor- 
rupt and  sinister  manner,  either  sold  or  connived  at  the  sale 
of  a  patent  place  in  the  collection  of  the  customs  at  Exeter, 
he  writes  as  follows:  "  As  to  yourself  I  am  convinced  the 
ministry  will  not  venture  to  attack  you;  they  dare  not  sub- 
mit to  such  an  enquiry.  If  they  do,  shew  no  fear,  but  tell 
them  plainly  you  will  justify,  and  subpoena  Mr.  Hine,  Bur- 
goyne,  and  Bradshaw  of  the  .Treasury:  that  will  silence 
them  at  once1."  The  printer,  however,  was  still  fearful,  and 
could  not  avoid  expressing  himself  so  to  his  invisible  friend; 
who  thus  replied  to  his  proposal  of  volunteering  an  apology: 
u  Judge  for  yourself.  I  enter  seriously  into  the  anxiety  of 
your  situation;  at  the  same  time  I  am  strongly  inclined  to 
think  that  you  will  not  be  called  upon.  They  cannot  do  it 
without  subjecting  Hine's  affair  to  an  enquiry,  which  would 
be  worse  than  death  to  the  minister.  As  it  is  they  are  more 
seriously  stabbed  with  this  iast  stroke  than  with  all  the  rest. 
At  any  rate,  stand  firm:  (I  mean  with  all  the  humble  ap- 
pearances of  contrition;)  if  you  trim,  or  falter  you  will  lose 
friends,  without  gaining  others2."  The  friendly  advice  thus 
shrewdly  given  was  punctiliously  followed;  and  the  predic- 
tions of  Junius  were  more  than  accomplished:  for  the  minis- 
ter not  only  did  not  dare  to  enforce  his  menaces,  but  at  the 
same  time  thought  it  expedient  to  drop  abruptly  the  prose- 
cution of  Mr.  Vaughan,  which  this  attack  upon  him  was 
expressly  designed  to  fight  off,  and  to  drop  it  too,  after  the 
rule  against  Vaughan  had  been  made  absolute. 

Upon  the  publication  of  Junius's  letter  to  the  King, 
Woodfall  was  not  quite  so  fortunate — but  his  invisible  friend 
still  followed  him  with  assistance:  he  offered  him.  as  has 
already  been  observed,  a  reimbursement  of  whatever  might 
be  his  pecuniary  expenses,  and  aided  him  in  a  still  higher 
degree  with  the  soundest  prudential  and  legal  advice.  Upon 
a  subsequent  occasion  also,  he  makes  the  following  observa- 
tion. "  As  to  yourself,  I  really  think  you  in  no  danger.  Ton 
are  not  the  object,  and  punishing  you  would  be  no  gratifica- 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  15.  -  Id,  No.  17, 


*44  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

tion  to  the  King1." — But  upon  this  subject,  the  following  is 
one  of  the  most  important  notes,  as,  although  he  expressly 
denies  all  professional  knowledge  of  the  law,  it  sufficiently 
proves  that  he  was  better  acquainted  with  it  than  many  wh» 
are  actual  practitioners.  "  I  have  carefully  perused  the  In~ 
formation:  it  is  so  loose  and  ill-drawn  that  I  am  persuaded 
Mr.  De  Grey2  could  not  have  had  a  hand  in  it.  Their  insert- 
ing the  whole,  proves  they  had  no  strong  passages  to  fix  on. 
I  still  think  it  will  not  be  tried.  If  it  should,  it  will  not  be 
possible  for  a  jury  to  find  you  guilty3." 

In  his  first  opinion  he  was  mistaken;  in  his  second  he  was 
correct.  The  cause  was  tried  at  Nisi  Prius — but  no  one  has 
yet  forgotten  that  the  verdict  returned  was  "  guilty  of  print- 
ing and  publishing  only;"  which  in  fact  implied  not  guilty 
at  all4. 

It  is  to  this  cause,  as  has  been  already  glanced  at,  we  are 
chiefly  indebted  for  an  acknowledged  and  unequivocal  right 
in  the  jury  fro  return  a  general  verdict — that  is,  a  verdict 
that  shall  embrace  matter  of  law  as  well  as  matter  of  fact. 
Upon  the  ambiguity  of  the  verdict  however,  in  the  case  be- 
fore us,  a  motion  was  made  by  the  defendant's  counsel  in 
arrest  of  judgment;  at  the  same  time  that  an  opposite  mo- 
tion was  advanced  by  the  counsel  for  the  crown,  for  a  rule 
upon  the  defendant  to  shew  cause  why  the  verdict  should 
not  be  entered  up  according  to  the  legal  import  of  the  words. 
On  both  sides  a  rule  to  shew  cause  was  granted,  and  the 
matter  being  argued  before  the  court  of  King's  Bench,  Lord 
Mansfield,  whose  opinion  was  strongly  in  favour  of  the  ver- 
dict being  entered  up,  was  supported  by  the  single  opinion 
of  Mr.  Justice  Smythe  alone — the  rest  of  the  judges  unani- 
mously opposing  his  lordship's  construction.  The  result  was 
the  grant  of  a  new  trial,  which,  however,  was  not  proceeded 
in,  for  want  of  proof  of  the  publication  of  the  paper  in  ques- 
tion. 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  43. 

2  At  that  time  Attorney  General. 

3  Private  Letters,  No.  20. 

4  See  Editor's  notes  to  p.  12  and  191  of  this  Volume 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  ^45' 

That  Junius  was  quick  and  irritable  in  conceiving  disgust, 
and  vehement  and  even  at  times  malignant  in  his  enmities, 
we  may  equally  ascertain  from  his  private  and  his  public 
communications.  In  the  violence  of  his  hatreds  almost  every 
one  whom  he  attacks  is  guilty  in  the  extreme;  there  are  no 
degrees  of  comparison  either  in  their  criminality  or  his  own- 
detestation:  the  whole  is  equally  superlative.  If  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  be  the  object  of  his  address,  "every  villain  in  the 
kingdom,"  says  he,  "  is  your  friend1— the  very  sunshine  you 
live  in  is  a  prelude  to  your  destruction2."  If  Lord  Mans- 
field fall  beneath  his  lash,  M  I  do  not  scruple  to  affirm,  with 
the  most  solemn  appeal  to  God  for  my  sincerity,  that  in  my 
judgment  he  is  the  worst  and  most  dangerous  man  in  the 
kingdom3."  An  opinion  corroborated  by  him  in  his  private 
correspondence:  '*  We  have  got  the  rascal  down,"  says  he, 
"  let  us  strangle  him  if  it  be  possible4."  In  like  manner  ad- 
dressing himself  to  Lord  Barrington,  "  You  are  so  detested 
and  despised  by  all  parties  (because  all  parties  know  you) 
that  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  have  but  one  wish  con- 
cerning you5;"  while  his  note  to  the  printer  accompanying 
this  address,  closes  thus:  "The  proceedings  of  this  wretch 
are  unaccountable.  There  must  be  some  mystery  in  it  which 
I  hope  will  soon  be  discovered  to  his  confusion.  Next  to  the 
Duke  of  Grafton  I  verily  believe  the  blackest  heart  in  the 
kingdom  belongs  to  Lord  Barrington6."  Even  Scaevola,  an 
anonymous  writer,  whom  he  knew  not, is  "a  blockhead" and 
"  a  fool7"  for  opposing  him:  Swinney,  for  his  impertinent 
enquiry  of  Lord  G.  Sackville,  "  a  wretched  and  a  dangerous 
fool8;"  and  Garrick,  on  the  same  account,  "a rascal,  and  a 
vagabond9." 

Yet  it  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  the  more  violent  of  his 
political  abhorrences;  and  which  seem,  indeed,  to  have  been 
almost  exclusively  directed  against  the  three  ministerial  cha- 
racters just  enumerated  in  conjunction  with  the  earl  of  Bute: 
for  his  attacks  upon  the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  Sir  William 

1  Vol.  II.  p.  123.     4  Private  Letters,  No.  24.  7  Id.  No.  46  and  47. 

3  Id.  p.  125.  5  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  CXJ.    8  Id.  No.  5. 

3  Id.  p.  148.  6  Private  Letters,  No.  61.  9  Id.  No.  41  and  43. 


#46  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

Blackstone,  are  but  light  and  casual  when  compared  with  his 
incessant  and  unmitigated  tirades  against  these  noblemen. 

Firmly  rooted  in  the  best  Whig  principles  of  the  day,  he 
had  an  invincible  hatred  of  Lord  Bute  as  the  grand  prop  and 
foundation-stone  of  Toryism  in  its  worst  and  most  arbitrary 
tendencies:  as  introduced  into  Carlton- house  against  the  con- 
sent of  his  present  Majesty's  royal  grandfather,  through  the 
overweening  favouritism  of  the  princess  dowager  of  Wales; 
as  having  obtained  an  entire  ascendancy  over  this  princess, 
and  through  this  princess  over  the  King,  whose  non-age  had 
been  entirely  entrusted  to  him,  and  through  the  king  over 
the  cabinet  and  the  parliament  itself.  The  introduction  of 
Lord  Bute  into  the  post  of  chief  preceptor  to  his  Majesty- 
was  in  our  author's  opinion  an  inexpiable  evil.  "  That"  says 
he,  "  was  the  salient  point  from  which  all  the  mischiefs  and 
disgraces  of  the  present  reign  took  life  and  motion."  Vol.  I. 
p.  193.  Thus  despising  the  tutor,  he  could  have  no  great  re- 
verence for  the  pupil:  and  hence  the  personal  dislike  he  too 
frequently  betrays,  and  occasionally  in  language  altogether 
intemperate  and  unjustifiable,  for  the  Sovereign.  Hence, 
too,  his  unconquerable  prejudice  against  Scotchmen  of  every 
rank. 

The  same  cause  excited  his  antipathy  against  Lord  Mans- 
field, even  before  his  Lordship's  arbitrary  line  of  conduct 
had  proved  that  our  author's  suspicions  concerning  him  were 
well-founded.  Lord  Mansfield  was  a  Scotchman:  but  this 
was  not  the  whole.  Under  the  patronage  of  Lord  Stormont, 
he  had  been  educated,  with  the  highest  veneration  for  the 
whole  Stuart  family,  and  especially  for  the  Pretender;  whose 
health,  when  a  young  man,  had  been  his  favourite  toast,  and 
to  whom  his  brother  was  private  and  confidential  secretary. 
It  was  for  these  sentiments,  and  for  the  politics  which  in- 
truded themselves  in  his  judicial  proceedings,  where  the 
crown  was  concerned,  that  our  author  expressed  himself  in 
such  bitter  terms  against  the  chief  justice.  "  Our  language," 
says  he,  in  Letter  xli.  Vol.  I.  p.  251,  "  has  no  term  of  re- 
proach, the  mind  has  no  idea  of  detestation,  which  has  not 
already  been  happily  applied  to  you,  and  exhausted. — Ample 


PRELIMINARY  F.SSAY.  #47 

justice  has  been  done,  by  abler  pens  than  mine,  to  the  separate 
mtrits  of  your  life  and  character.  Let  it  be  my  humble  office 
to  collect  the  scattered  sweets,  till  their  united  virtue  tor- 
tures the  sense." 

His  detestation  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton  proceeded  from 
his  Grace's  having  abandoned  his  patron  Lord  Chatham, 
and  the  Whig  principles  into  which  he  had  been  initiated 
under  him,  to  gratify  his  own  ambition  on  the  first  offer  that 
occurred:  from  his  having  afterwards  united  sometimes  with 
the  Bedford  party,  sometimes  with  Lord  Bute,  and  some- 
times with  other  connexions  of  whatever  principles  or  pro- 
fessions, whenever  the  union  appeared  favourable  to  his  per- 
sonal views;  and  from  his  having  hereby  prevented  that 
general  coalition  of  the  different  divisions  of  Whig  states- 
men, which  must  in  all  probability  have  proved  permanently 
triumphant  over  the  power  of  the  King  himself.  u  My  ab- 
horrence of  the  Duke,"  says  Junius,  "  arises  from  an  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  his  character,  and  from  a  thorough 
conviction  that  his  baseness  has  been  rhe  cause  of  grater 
mischief  to  England  than  even  the  unfortunate  ambition  of 
Lord  Bute1." 

It  was  not  necessary  for  Lord  Barrington  to  be  a  Scotch- 
man in  order  to  excite  the  antipathy  of  Junius.  He  might 
justly  despise  and  even  hate  him  Cif  it  be  allowable  to  indulge 
a  private  hatred  against  a  public  character  of  any  kind)  for 
his  political  versatilities  and  want  of  all  principle;  for  atroci- 
ties indeed,  which  no  man  can  yet  have  forgotten,  and  which 
never  can  be  buried  in  forgcifulness  but  with  the  total  obli- 
vion of  his  name.  Barrington,  independently  of  these  general 
considerations,  however,  was  the  man  who  moved  for 
Wilkes's  expulsion  from  parliament,  in  which  he  was  second- 
ed by  Mr.  Rig'oy. 

These  were  the  prime  objects  of  our  author's  abhorrence; 
and  in  proportion  as  other  politicians  were  connected  with 
them  by  principles  or  want  of  principles,  confederacy,  nation 
or  even  family,  he  abhorred  them  also. 

i  Vol.  II.  p.  67. 


^48  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

His  reasons  for  believing  that  the  constitution  allows  hiia 
to  regard  the  reigning  prince  as  occasionally  culpable  in  his 
own  person,  are  given  at  large  in  his  Preface.  To  few  peo- 
ple perhaps  in  the  present  day  will  they  carry  conviction. 
But,  bating  this  single  opinion,  his  view  of  the  principles 
and  powers  of  the  constitution,  appears  to  be  equally  correct 
and  perspicuous.  Upon  the  question  of  general  warrants;  of 
the  right  of  juries  to  return  general  verdicts,  or  in  other 
words,  to  determine  upon  the  law  as  well  as  upon  the  fact; 
of  the  unlimited  power  of  Lords  Chief  Justices  to  admit  to 
bail;  of  the  illegality  of  suspending  acts  of  parliament  by 
proclamation,  we  owe  him  much;  he  was  a  warm  and  rigid 
supporter  of  the  co-extent,  as  well  as  co-existence  of  the 
three  estates  of  the  government,  and  it  was  from  this  princi- 
ple alone  that  he  argued  against  the  system  of  indefinite  pri- 
vilege as  appertaining  to  either  house  individually;  and  as 
allowing  it  a  power  of  arbitrary  punishment,  for  what  may 
occasionally  be  regarded  as  a  contempt  of  such  house,  or  a 
breach  of  such  privilege. 

Personally  and  outrageously  inimical,  however,  as  he  was, 
to  the  reigning  prince,  and  earnestly  devoted  as  he  seems  to 
have  been  to  the  cause  of  the  people,  neither  his  enmity  nor 
his  patriotism  hurried  him  into  any  of  those  political  extra- 
vagancies which  have  peculiarly  marked  the  character  of  the 
present  age:  a  limited  monarchy,  like  our  own,  he  openly 
preferred  to  a  republic;  he  contended  for  the  constitutional 
right  of  impressing,  in  case  of  emergency,  sea-faring  men 
for  the  common  service  of  the  country;  strenuously  opposed 
the  supporters  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  in  their  endeavours  to 
restore  annual  parliaments,  and  their  fanciful,  but  as  it  ap- 
peared to  him,  unconstitutional  plan  of  purifying  the  legisla- 
ture by  disfranchising  a  number  of  boroughs  which  they  had 
chosen  to  regard  as  totally  corrupt  and  rotten:  and  anterior 
to  the  American  contest  was  as  thoroughly  convinced  as  Mr. 
George  Grenville  himself  of  the  supremacy  of  the  legislature 
of  this  country  over  the  American  colonies1. 

J  See  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  x.  as  well  as  various  others  in  the  ve^ 
3768, 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #49 

Upon  the  first  point  he  observes:  "  I  can  more  readily  ad- 
mire the  liberal  spirit  and  integrity,  than  the  sound  judgment 
of  any  man,  who  prefers  a  republican  form  of  government, 
in  this  or  am/  other  empire  of  equal  extent,  to  a  monarchy  so 
qualified  and  limited  as  ours.  I  am  convinced,  that  neither 
is  it  in  theory  the  wisest  system  of  government,  nor  practi- 
cable in  this  country1."  Upon  the  second  point  he  appears 
to  have  been  chiefly  influenced  by  judge  Foster's  argument 
on  the  legality  of  pressing  seamen,  and  his  comment  on  that 
argument  may  be  seen  in  his  observations,  Vol.  II.  p.  109 
and  p.  118.  Upon  the  third  and  fourth  points  he  thus  in- 
genuously expresses  himself:  "  Whenever  the  question  shall 
be  seriously  agitated,  I  will  endeavour  (and  if  I  live,  will 
assuredly  attempt  it,)  to  convince  the  English  nation  by  ar- 
guments, to  my  understanding  unanswerable,  that  they  ought 
to  insist  upon  a  triennial,  and  banish  the  idea  of  an  annual 

parliament. As  to  cutting  away  the  rotten  boroughs,  I 

am  as  much  offended  as  any  man  at  seeing  so  many  of  them 
under  the  direct  influence  of  the  crown,  or  at  the  disposal  of 
private  persons;  yet  I  own  I  have  both  doubts  and  appre- 
hensions, in  regard  tp  the  remedy  you  propose.  I  shall  be 
charged,  perhaps,  with  an  unusual  want  of  political  intre- 
pidity, when  I  honestly  confess  to  you,  that  I  am  startled  at 
the  idea  of  so  extensive  an  amputation.  In  the  first  place,  I 
question  the  power  de  jure  of  the  legislature  to  disfranchise 
a  number  of  boroughs  upon  the  general  ground  of  improving 
the  constitution. — When  you  propose  to  cut  away  the  rotten 
parts,  can  you  tell  us  what  parts  are  perfectly  sound?  Are 
there  any  certain  limits,  in  fact  or  theory,  to  inform  you  at 
what  point  you  must  stop, — at  what  point  the  mortification 
ends2?" 

Junius  has  been  repeatedly  accused  of  having  been  a  par- 
ty-man, but  perhaps  no  political  satirist  was  ever  less  so.  To 
Mr.  Wilkes  and  Mr.  Home  he  was  equally  indifferent,  ex- 
cept in  regard  to  their  public  principles  and  public  characters. 
.In  his  estimation  the  cause  alone  was  every  thing,  and  they 

:  Vol.  II.  p.  99.  2  Id.  ?.  149— 152, 

Vol.  I.  *  G 


*50  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

were  only  of  value  as  the  temporary  and  accidental  sup- 
porters of  it.  "  Let  us  employ  these  men,"  says  he,  "  in 
whatever  departments  their  various  abilities  are  best  suited 
to,  and  as  much  to  the  advantage  of  the  common  cause,  as 
their  different  inclinations  will  permit. — If  individuals  have 
no  virtues  their  vices  may  be  of  use  to  us.  I  care  not  with 
what  principle  the  new-born  patriot  is  animated,  if  the  mea- 
sures he  supports  are  beneficial  to  the  community.  The  na- 
tion is  interested  in  his  conduct.  His  motives  are  his  own. 
The  properties  of  a  patriot  are  perishable  in  the  individual, 
but  there  is  a  quick  succession  of  subjects,  and  the  breed  is 
worth  preserving1."  It  was  in  this  view  of  the  politics  of  the 
day,  that  he  privately  cautioned  his  friend  Woodfall,  as  has 
been  already  noticed,  "  to  be  on  his  guard  against  patriots2;" 
and  in  the  consciousness  of  possessing  a  truly  independent 
spirit,  that  he  boasted  of  being  **  disowned,  as  a  dangerous 
auxiliary,  by  every  party  in  the  kingdom3,"  his  creed  not 
expressly  comporting  with  any  single  party  creed  whatever. 
Yet  there  were  statesmen  whom  he  believed  to  be  truly 
honest  and  upright,  and  for  whom  he  felt  a  personal  as  well 
as  a  political  reverence:  and  it  is  no  small  proof  of  the  keen- 
ness of  his  penetration  that  the  characters,  whom  he  thus 
singled  out  from  the  common  mass  of  pretenders  to  genuine 
patriotism,  have  been  ever  since  growing  in  the  public  esti- 
mation, and  are  now  justly  looked  back  to  as  the  pillars  and 
bulwarks  of  the  English  constitution.  His  high  opinion  of 
the  general  purity  and  virtue  of  Lord  Camden  we  have 
already  noticed.  "  Lord  Butt ,"  says  he,  in  describing  seve- 
ral others  of  whom  he  equally  approved,  "  found  no  resource 
of  dependence  or  security  in  the  proud,  imposing  superiority 
of  Lord  Chatham's  abilities,  the  shrewd,  inflexible  judgment 
of  Mr.  Grenville4,  nor  in  the  mild,  but  determined  integrity 

1  Vol.  II.  p.  88.  94.         2  Private  Letters,  No.  44.         3  Vol.  II.  p.  1. 

4  Of  nl i  the  political  characters  of  the  day  Mr.  Grenville  appears  to  have 
been  our  author's  favourite;  no  man  was  more  open  to  censure  in  many 
parts  of  his  conduct,  but  he  is  never  censured:  while,  on  the  contrary, lie 
ib  extolled  wherever  an  opportunity  oilers;  yet  Junius  positively  asserted 
that  he  had  no  personal  knowledge  of  Mr.  Grenville.  Compare  Miscella- 
neous Letters,  No.  XXix.  July  JO,  1768,  with  p.  121  of  this  Vol. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *51 

of  Lord  Rockingham1."  He  also  seems  disposed  to  have 
entertained  a  good  opinion  of  Lord  Holland;  and  this  is  the 
rather  entitled  to  attention,  as  the  opinion  was  communicated 
confidentially.  "  I  wish,"  says  he,  "  Lord  Holland  may  ac- 
quit himself  with  honour:  if  his  cause  be  good,  he  should  at 
once  have  published  that  account  to  which  he  refers  in  his 
letter  to  the  mayor2."  With  respect  to  Mr.  Sawbridge,  and 
his  vvorthy  colleague,  he  observes,  "  My  memory  fails  me  if 
I  have  mentioned  their  names  with  disrespect; — unless  it  be 
reproachful  to  acknowledge  a  sincere  respect  for  the  charac- 
ter of  Mr.  Sawbridge,  and  not  to  have  questioned  the  inno- 
cence of  Mr.  Oliver's  intentions3."  And  again,  adverting  to 
the  former,  u  It  were  much  to  be  desired,  that  we  had  many 
such  men  as  Mr.  Sawbridge  to  represent  us  in  parliament. — 
I  speak  from  common  report  and  opinion  only,  when  I  im- 
pute to  him  a  speculative  predilection  in  favour  of  a  repub- 
lic.— In  the  personal  conduct  and  manners  of  the  man,  I 
cannot  be  mistaken.  He  has  shewn  himself  possessed  of  that 
republican  firmness,  which  the  times  require,  and  by  which 
an  English  gentleman  may  be  as  usefully  and  as  honourably 
distinguished,  as  any  citizen  of  ancient  Rome,  of  Athens,  or 
Lacedsemon4." 

Yet  the  times  were  too  corrupt,  and  the  instances  of  de- 
fection too  numerous,  to  allow  so  wary  a  statesman  as  Junius 
to  regard  even  these  exalted  characters  without  occasional 
suspicion  and  jealousy.  Much  as  he  approved  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Rockingham  personally,  he  regarded  him  publicly  as 
forming  a  feeble  administration  that  dissolved  in  its  own 
weakness5.  He  had  more  than  once  some  doubts  of  the  mo- 
tives both  of  Lord  Camden  and  Lord  Chatham:  their  oppo- 
sition at  the  commencement  of  the  American  contest  he  was 
jealous  of;  and  ascribed  it  rather  to  political  pique  than  to 
liberal  patriotism6.  To  his  friend  he  writes  thus  confiden- 
tially, "  The  Duke  of  Grafton  has  been  long  labouring  to 
detach  Camden7;"  and  in  unison  with  this  idea  he  tells  his 

1  Page  105  of  this  Vol.     4  Vol.  II.  p.  90.  5  Page  35  of  this  Vol. 

2  Private  Letters,  No.  5.  5  P.  152  of  this  Vol.  7  Private  Letters,  No.  47- 
»  Vol.  II.  p.  66. 


*52  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY, 

Lordship  himself  publicly,  "  If  you  decline  this  honourable 
office,  I  fear  it  will  be  said  that,  for  some  months  past,  you 
have  kept  too  much  company  with  the  Duke  of  Grafton1." 
And  even  as  late  as  August,  1771,  when  Lord  Chatham  had 
been  progressively  growing  on  his  good  opinion,  he  thus 
cautiously  praises  him.  "  If  his  ambition  be  upon  a  level 
with    his    understanding; — if  he  judges  of  what   is    truly 
honourable  for  himself,  with  the  same  superior  genius,  which 
animates  and  directs  him  to  eloquence  in  debate,  to  wisdom 
in  decision,  even  the  pen  of  Junius  shall  contribute  to  reward 
him.   Recorded  honours  shall  gather  round  his  monument, 
and  thicken  over  him.   It  is  a  solid  fabric,  and  will  support 
the  laurels  that  adorn  it. — I  am  not  conversant  in  the  lan- 
guage of  panegyric. — These  praises  are  extorted  from  me; 
but  they  will  wear  well,  for  they  have  been  dearly  earned2." 
In  his  religious  opinions  Junius  has  been  accused  of  deism 
and  atheism;  but  on  what  account  it  seems  impossible  to  as- 
certain: he  has  by  others  been  conceived  to  have  been  a  dis- 
senter3; yet  with  as  little  reason.  To  judge  from  the  few 
passages  in  his  own  writings  that  have  any  bearing  upon  the 
question,  and  which  occur  chiefly  in  his  letter,  under  the 
signature  of  Philo- Junius,  of  August  26,  1771,  he  appears  to 
have  been  a  Christian  upon  the  most  sincere  conviction;  one 
of  whose  chief  objects  was  to  defend  the  religion  established 
by  law,  and  who  was  resolved  to  renounce  and  give  up  to 
public  contempt  and  indignation  every  man  who  should  be 
capable  of  uttering  a  disrespectful  word  against  it.  To  the 
religion  of  the  court,  it  must  be  confessed  that  he  was  no 
friend;  and  to  speak  the  truth  it  constituted,  at  the  period  in 
question,  an  anomaly  not  a  little  difficult  of  solution.   To  be- 
hold a  sanctuary  self-surrounded  by  a  moat  of  pollution;  a 
prince  strictly  and  exemplar] ly  pious,  selecting  for  his  confi- 
dential advisers  men  of  the  most  abandoned  debauchery  and 
profligacy  of  life,  demanded,  in  order  to  penetrate  the  mys- 
tery, a  knowledge  never  completely  acquired  till  the  present 

1  Vol.  II.  p.  148.  2  Id.  p.  66,  67. 

3  Heron's  edition  of  the  Letters  of  Junius,  Vol.  I.  p.  69 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *53 

day,  which  has  suffirirntly  demonstrated  how  impossible  it 
is  for  a  king  of  England,  to  exercise  at  all  times  a  real  option 
in  the  appointment  of  his  ministers.  The  severity  with  which 
our  author  uniformlv  satirized  every  violation  of  public  de- 
corum, at  least  entitles  him  to  public  gratitude,  and  does 
credit  to  the  purity  of  his  heart1:  and  if  his  morality  may  be 
judged  of  by  various  occasional  observations  and  advices 
scattered  throughout  his  private  intercourse  with  Mr.  Wood- 
fall,  some  instances  of  which  have  already  been  selected,  it  is 
impossible  to  do  otherwise  than  approve  both  his  principles 
and  his  conduct. 

Whether  the  writer  of  these  letters  had  any  other  and  less 
worthy  object  in  view  than  that  he  uniformly  avowed,  name- 
ly, a  desire  to  subserve  the  best  political  interests  of  his 
country,  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  with  precision.  It  is  un- 
questionably no  common  occurrence  in  history,  to  behold  a 
man  thus  steadily,  and  almost  incessantly,  for  five  years, 
volunteering  his  services  in  the  cause  of  the  people,  amidst 
abuse  and  slander  from  every  party,  exposed  to  universal  re- 
sentment, unknown,  and  not  daring  to  be  known,  without 
having  any  personal  object  to  acquire,  any  sinister  motive  of 
individual  aggrandisement  or  reward.  Yet  nothing  either  in 
his  public  or  private  letters  affords  us  the  remotest  hint  that 
he  was  thus  actuated2.  Throughout  the  whole,  from  first  to 
last,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  warmth,  and  rancour,  his  argu- 
ment and  declamation,  his  appeal  to  the  public,  and  his  notes 
to  his  confidential  friend,  he  seems  to  have  been  influenced 
by  the  stimulus  of  sound  and  genuine  patriotism  alone.  With 
this  he  commenced  his  career,  and  with  this  he  retired  from 
the  field  of  action,  retaining,  at  least  a  twelvemonth  after- 
wards, the  latest  period  in  which  we  are  able  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  him,  the  same  political  sentiments  he  had  pro- 
fessed on  his  first  appearance  before  the  world,  and  still  ready 
to  renew  his  efforts  the  very  moment  he  could  perceive  they 

1  See  especially  Vol   I.  p.  96,  97,  100,  101,  148,  149. 

3  The  only  hint  which  can  be  gathered  that  he  had  any  prospect  at  any 
time  of  engaging  in  public  life,  is  in  Private  Letters,  No.  17:  but  even  this 
is  of  questionable  meaning. 


*54  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

had  a  chance  of  being  attended  with  benefit.  Under  these 
circumstances,  therefore,  however  difficult  it  mav  be  to  acquit 
him  altogether  of  personal  considerations,  it  is  still  more 
difficult,  and  must  be  altogether  unjust,  ungenerous,  and 
illogical  to  suspect  his  integrity. 

It  has  often  been  said,  from  the  general  knowledge  he  has 
evinced  of  English  jurisprudence,  that  he  must  have  studied 
the  law  professionally:  and  in  one  of  his  Private  Letters  al- 
ready quoted,  he  gives  his  personal  opinion  upon  the  mode 
in  which  the  information  of  the  King  against  Woodfall  was 
drawn  up,  in  a  manner  that  may  serve  to  countenance  such 
an  opinion.  Yet  on  other  occasions  he  speaks  obviously  not 
from  his  own  knowledge,  but  from  a  consultation  with  legal 
practitioners:  "  The  information,"  says  he,  "  will  only  be  for 
a  misdemeanour,  and  /  am  advised  that  no  jury,  and  espe- 
cially in  these  times,  will  find  it1."  In  like  manner,  although 
he  affirms  in  his  elaborate  letter  to  Lord  Mansfield,  "  I  well 
knew  the  practice  of  the  court,  and  by  what  legal  rules  it 
ought  to  be  directed2;"  yet  he  is  for  ever  contemning  the  in- 
tricacies and  littlenesses  of  special  pleading,  and  in  his  Pre- 
face declares  unequivocally,  "  I  am  no  lawyer  by  profession, 
nor  do  I  pretend  to  be  more  deeply  read  than  every  English 
gentleman  should  be  in  the  laws  of  his  country.  If  therefore 
the  principles  I  maintain  are  truly  constitutional,  I  shall  not 
think  myself  answered,  though  I  should  be  convicted  of  a 
mistake  in  terms,  or  of  misapplying  the  language  of  the  law3." 

That  he  was  of  some  rank  and  consequence  seems  gene- 
rally to  have  been  admitted  by  his  opponents,  and  must  in- 
deed necessarily  follow,  as  has  been  already  casually  hinted 
at,  from  the  facility  with  which  he  acquired  political  infor- 
mation, and  a  knowledge  of  ministerial  intrigues.  In  one 
place  he  expressly  affirms  that  his  "  rank  and  fortune  place 
him  above  a  common  bribe4;"  in  another  "  I  should  have 
hoped  that  even  my  name  might  cany  some  authority  with 
it,  if  I  had  not  seen  how  very  little  weight  or  consideration 
a  printed  paper  receives  even  from  the  respectable  signature 

*  Private  Letters,  No.  18.       2  Vol.  II.  p.  127.       3  Page  8  of  this  Vol. 
4  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  liv.  Vol.  II.  p.  317. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *55 

of  Sir  W.  Draper1."  On  two  occasions  he  intimates  an  in- 
tention of  composing  a  regular  history  of  the  Duke  of 
Grafton's  administration.  "  These  observations,"  says  he, 
"  general  as  they  are,  might  easily  be  extended  into  a  faith- 
ful history  of  your  Grace's  administration,  and  may  perhaps 
be  the  employment  of  a  future  hour2;"  and  in  a  note  subjoin- 
ed to  a  subsequent  letter,  "  the  history  of  this  ridiculous 
administration  shall  not  be  lost  to  the  public3."  And  on  one 
occasion,  and  on  one  occasion  only,  he  appears  to  hint  at 
some  prospect,  though  a  slender  one,  of  taking  a  part  in  the 
government  of  the  country.  It  occurs  in  a  private  letter  to 
Woodfall:  "  I  doubt  much  whether  I  shall  ever  have  the 
pleasure  of  knowing  you;  but,  if  things  take  the  turn  I  expect, 
you  shall  know  me  by  my  works4" 

Of  those  who  have  critically  anahzd  the  style  of  his 
compositions,  some  have  pretended  to  prove  that  he  must 
necessarily  have  been  of  Irish  descent  or  Irish  education, 
from  the  peculiarity  of  his  idioms;  while,  to  shew  how  little 
dependence  is  to  be  placed  upon  any  such  observations, 
others  have  equally  pretended  to  prove,  from  a  similar  in- 
vestigation, that  he  could  not  have  been  a  native  either  of 
Scotland  or  Ireland,  nor  have  studied  in  any  university  of 
either  of  those  countries.  The  fact  is,  that  there  are  a  few 
phraseologies  in  his  letters  peculiar  to  himself;  such  as  occur 
in  the  compositions  of  all  original  writers  of  great  force  and 
genius,  but  which  are  neither  indicative  of  any  particular 
race,  nor  referable  to  anv  provincial  dialect. 

The  distinguishing  features  of  his  style  are  ardour,  spirit, 
perspicuity,  classical  correctness,  sententious,  epigrammatic 
compression:  his  characteristic  ornaments  keen,  indignant 
invective,  audacious  interrogation,  shrewd,  severe,  antithetic 
retort,  proud,  presumptuous  disdain  of  the  powers  of  his 
adversary,  pointed  and  appropriate  allusions  that  can  never 
be  mistaken,  but  are  often  overcharged,  and  at  times  per- 
haps totally  unfounded,  similes  introduced,  not  for  the  pur- 
pose of  decoration,  but  of  illustration  and  energy,  brilliant, 

1  Page  45  of  this  volume.  3  Id.  p.  200. 

1  Id.  p.  3.3.  4  Private  Letters,  No.  \7- 


%5$  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

burning,  admirably  selected,  and  irresistible  in  their  appli- 
cation1. In  his  similes,  however,  he  is  once  or  twice  too 
recondite,  and  in  his  grammatical  construction  still  more 
frequently  incorrect.  Yet  the  latter  should  in  most  instances 
perhaps,  if  not  the  whole,  be  rather  attributed  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  revising  the  press,  and  the  peculiar  circumstances 
under  which  his  work  was  printed  and  published,  than  to 
any  inaccuracy  or  classical  misconception  of  his  own.  As  to 
the  surreptitious  copies  of  his  letters,  he  frequently  com- 
plains of  their  numerous  errors.  w  Indeed,"  says  he,  "  they 
are  innumerable2;"  and  though  the  genuine  edition  labours 
under  very  considerably  fewer,  and  on  several  occasions 
received  his  approbation  on  the  score  of  accuracy,  yet  it 
would  be  too  much  to  assert  that  it  is  altogether  free  from 
errors.  In  truth  this  was  not  to  be  expected,  for  it  is  not 
known  that  a  single  proof  sheet  (excepting  those  containing 
the  first  two  letters)  was  ever  sent  to  him.  "  You  must  cor- 
rect the  press  yourself,"  savs  he  in  one  of  his  letters  to 
Woodfall;  "  but  /  should  be  glad  to  see  corrected  proofs 

1  The  following  character  of  his  style  and  talents  is  the  production  of  a 
pen  contemporaneous  but  hostile  to  him.  It  occurs  in  a  letter  in  the  Public 
Advertiser,  subscribed  Alciphron,  and  dated  August  22,  1771.  The  writer 
had  well  studied  him. 

"  The  admiration  that  is  so  lavishly  bestowed  upon  this  writer,  affords 
one  of  the  clearest  proofs,  perhaps,  that  can  be  found,  how  much  more 
easily  men  are  swayed  by  the  imagination,  than  by  the  judgment;  and  that 
a  fertile  invention,  glittering  language,  and  sounding  periods,  act  with 
far  greater  force  upon  the  mind,  than  the  simple  deductions  of  sober 
reasoning,  or  the  calm  evidence  of  facts.  For  the  talents  of  Juxius  never 
appeared  in  demonstration. 

"  Rapid,  violent,  and  impetuous,  he  affirms  without  reason,  and  decides 
without  proof;  as  if  he  feared  that  the  slow  methods  of  induction  and  ar- 
gument would  interrupt  him  in  his  progress,  and  throw  obstacles  in  the- 
way  of  his  career.  But  though  lie  advances  with  die  largest  strides,  his 
steps  are  measured.  His  expressions  are  selected  with  the  most  anxious 
care,  and  his  periods  terminated  in  harmonious  cadence.  Thus  he  capti- 
vates by  his  confidence,  by  the  turn  of  his  sentences,  andjw  the  force  of 
his  words.  His  readers  are  persuaded  because  they  are  agitated,  and  con^ 
vinced  because  they  are  pleased.  Their  assent,  therefore,  is  never  with-, 
held;  though  they  scarcely  know  why,  or  even  to  what  it  is  yielded/' 

3  Private  Letters,  No.  5. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #57 

of  the  two  first  sheets1."  The   Dedication  and  Preface  he 
certainly  did  not  revise. 

Yet  if  the  grammatical  construction  be  occasionally  im- 
perfect, (sometimes  hurried  over  by  the  author,  and  some- 
times mistaken  by  the  printer)  the  general  plan  and  outline, 
the  train  of  argument,  the  bold  and  fiery  images,  the  spirited 
invective  that  pervade  the  whole,  appear  to  have  been  always 
selected  with  the  utmost  care  and  attention.  Such  finished 
forms  of  composition  bear  in  themselves  the  most  evident 
marks  of  elaborate  forecast  and  revisal,  and  the  author 
rather  boasted  of  the  pains  he  had  bestowed  upon  them 
than  attempted  to  conceal  his  labour.  In  recommending  to 
Woodfali  to  introduce  into  his  purposed  edition  various 
letters  of  his  own  writing  under  other  signatures,  he  adds, 
"  If  you  adopt  this  plan  I  shall  point  out  those  which  I 
would  recommend;  for  you  know,  I  do  not,  nor  have  I 
time  to  give  equal  care  to  them  all. — As  to  Junius  I  must 
wait  for  fresh  matter,  as  this  is  a  character  which  must  be 
kept  up  with  credit2."  The  private  note  accompanying  his 
first  letter  to  Lord  Mansfield  commences  thus,  "  The  in- 
closed, though  begun  within  these  few  days,  has  been  greatly 
laboured;  it  is  very  correctly  copied;  and  I  beg  that  you 
will  take  care  that  it  be  literally  printed  as  it  stands3."  The 
note  accompanying  his  last  and  most  celebrated  letter  ob- 
serves as  follows:  "  At  last  I  have  concluded  my  great 
xvork,  and  assure  you  with  no  small  labour4."  On  sending 
the  additional  papers  for  the  genuine  edition  he  asserts,  "  I 
have  no  view  but  to  serve  you,  and  consequently  have  only 
to  desire  that  the  Dedication  and  Preface  may  be  correct. 
Look  to  it; — if  you  take  it  upon  yourself,  I  will  not  forgive 
your  suffering  it  to  be  spoiled.  /  zveigh  every  -word;  and 
every  alteration,  in  my  eyes  at  least,  is  a  blemish5  "  In  like 
manner  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Home,  he  interrogates  him, 
"  What  public  question  have  I  declined,  what  villain  have 
I  spared?  Is  there  no  labour  in  the  composition  of  these 
letters6?"   In  effect  no  excellence  of  any  kind  is  to  be  attained 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  40.  3  Id.  No.  24.  s  Id.  No.  46. 

2  Id.  No.  7.  4  Id.  No.  40.  6  Vol.  II.  p.  65. 

Vol.  I.  *  H 


*58  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

without  labour:  and  the  degree  of  excellence  that  characte- 
rises the  style  of  these  addresses,  intrinsically  demonstrates 
the  exercise  of  a  labour  unsparing  and  unremitted.  Mr. 
Home,  in  his  reply,  attempts  to  ridicule  this  acknowledg- 
ment: "  I  compassionate,"  says  he,  "  your  labour  in  the 
composition  of  your  letters,  and  will  communicate  to  you 
the  secret  of  my  fluency. — Truth  needs  no  ornament;  and, 
in  my  opinion,  what  she  borrows  of  the  pencil  is  deformity1." 
Yet  no  man  ever  bestowed  more  pains  upon  his  compo- 
sitions than  Mr.  Home  has  done:  nor  needed  he  to  have 
been  more  ashamed  of  the  confession  than  his  adversary. 
To  have  made  it  openly  would  have  been  honest  to  himself, 
useful  to  the  young,  and  salutary  to  the  conceited. 

His  most  elaborate  letters  are  that  to  the  King,  and  that 
to  Lord  Mansfield  upon  the  law  of  bailments:  one  of  his 
most  sarcastic  is  that  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  of  the  date  of 
May  30,  1769;  and  one  of  his  best  and  most  truly  valuable 
that  to  the  printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  dated  Oct.  5, 
1771,  upon  the  best  means  of  uniting  the  jarring  sectaries  of 
the  popular  party  into  one  common  cause. 

His  metaphors  are  peculiarly  brilliant,  and  so  numerous, 
though  seldom  unnecessarily  introduced,  as  to  render  it 
difficult  to  know  where  to  fix  in  selecting  a  few  examples. 
The  following  are  ably  managed,  and  require  no  explana- 
tion. "  The  ministry,  it  seems,  are  labouring  to  draw  a  line 
of  distinction  between  the  honour  of  the  crown  and  the 
rights  of  the  people.  This  new  idea  has  yet  been  only  start- 
ed in  discourse,  for,  in  effect,  both  objects  have  been  equally 
sacrificed.  I  neither  understand  the  distinction,  nor  what 
use  the  ministry  propose  to  make  of  it.  The  King's  honour 
is  that  of  his  people.  Their  real  honour  and  real  interest  are 
the  same. — I  am  not  contending  for  a  vain  punctilio. — 
Private  credit  is  wealth;  public  honour' is  security. — The 
feather  that  adorns  the  royal  bird,  supports  its  flight.  Strip 
him  of  his  plumage  and  you  fix  him  to  the  earth2."  Again: 
"  Above  all  things,  let  me  guard  my  countrymen  against 

>  Vol.  II.  p.  72.  2  Vol.  I.  [> 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *59 

the  meanness  and  folly  of  accepting  of  a  trifling  or  moderate 
compensation  for  extraordinary  and  essential  injuries.  Con- 
cessions, such  as  these,  are  of  little  moment  to  the  sum 
of  things;  unless  it  be  to  prove,  that  the  worst  of  men  are 
sensible  of  the  injuries  they  have  done  us,  and  perhaps  to 
demonstrate  to  us  the  imminent  danger  of  our  situation.  In 
the  shipwreck  of  the  state,  trifles  float  and  are  preserved; 
while  every  thing  solid  and  valuable  sinks  to  the  bottom,  and 
is  lost  for  ever1."  Once  more:  u  The  very  sun-shine  you 
live  in,  is  a  prelude  to  your  dissolution.  When  you  are  ripe, 
you  shall  be  plucked2."  The  commencement  of  his  letter  to 
Lord  Camden  shall  furnish  another  instance:  "  I  turn  with 
pleasure,  from  that  barren  waste,  in  which  no  salutary  plant 
takes  root,  no  verdure  quickens,  to  a  character  fertile,  as  I 
willingly  believe,  in  every  gnat  and  good  qualification3." 

In  a  few  instances  his  metaphors  are  rather  too  far-fetched 
or  recondite:  "  Yet  for  the  benefit  of  the  succeeding  age,  I 
could  wish  that  your  retreat  might  be  deferred,  until  your 
morals  shall  be  happily  ripened  to  that  maturity  of  corrup- 
tion, at  which  the  worst  examples  cease  to  be  contagious4." 
The  change  which  is  perpetually  taking  place  in  the  matter 
of  infection  gives  it  progressively  a  point  of  utmost  activity: 
— after  which  period,  by  the  operation  of  the  same  conti- 
nued change,  it  becomes  progressively  less  active,  till  at 
length  it  ceases  to  possess  any  effect  whatever.  The  parallel 
is  correctly  drawn,  but  it  cannot  be  followed  by  every  one. 
In  the  same  letter  we  have  another  example:  "  His  views 
and  situation  required  a  creature  void  of  all  these  proper- 
ties; and  he  was  forced  to  go  through  every  division,  reso- 
lution, composition,  and  refinement  of  political  chemistry, 
before  he  happily  arrived  at  the  caput  mortuum  of  vitriol 
in  your  Grace.  Flat  and  insipid  in  your  retired  state,  but 
brought  into  action,  you  become  vitriol  again5."  This  figure 
is  too  scientific,  and  not  quite  correct:  vitriol  cannot,  pro- 
perly speaking,  be  said  to  be,  in  any  instance,  a  caput  mor- 

1  Vol.  II.  p.  96,  97.  3  Id.  p.  147.  5  Vol.  I.  p.  105. 

2  Id.  p.  125.  *  Vol.  I.  p.  108. 


*60  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

tuum.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  been  unjustly  charged 
with  an  incongruity  of  metaphor  in  his  repartee  upon  the 
following  observation  of  Sir  W.  Draper:  "  You,  indeed,  are 
a  tyrant  of  another  sort,  and  upon  your  political  bed  of  tor- 
ture can  excruciate  any  subject,  from  a  first  minister  clown 
to  such  a  grub  or  butterfly  as  myself1."  To  this  remark  his 
reply  was  as  follows:  "  If  Sir  W.  Draper's  bed  be  a  bed  of 
torture,  he  has  made  it  for  himself.  I  shall  never  interrupt 
his  repose1."  We  need  not  ramble  so  far  as  to  vindicate  the 
present  use  of  this  last  word  by  referring  to  its  Latin  origin: 
he  himself  has  justly  noticed  under  the  signature  of  Philo- 
Junius,  that  those  who  pretend  to  espy  any  absurdity  either 
in  the  idea  or  expression,  "  cannot  distinguish  between  a 
sarcasm  and  a  contradiction3." 

To  pursue  this  critique  further  would  be  to  disparage  the 
judgment  of  the  reader.  Upon  the  whole  these  letters, 
whether  considered  as  classical  and  correct  compositions, 
or  as  addresses  of  popular  and  impressive  eloquence,  are 
well  entitled  to  the  distinction  they  have  acquired;  and 
quoted  as  they  have  been,  with  admiration,  in  the  senate  by 
such  nice  judges  and  accomplished  scholars  as  Mr.  Burke 
and  Lord  Eldon,  eulogized  by  Dr.  Johnson,  and  admitted 
by  the  author  of  the  Pursuits  of  Literature,  to  the  same  rank 
among  English  classics  as  Livy  or  Tacitus  among  Roman, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  will  live  commensurately 
with  the  language  in  which  they  are  composed. 

These  few  desultory  and  imperfect  hints  are  the  whole 
that  the  writer  of  this  essay  has  been  able  to  collect  con- 
cerning the  author  of  the  Letters  of  Junius.  Yet  desultory 
and  imperfect  as  they  are  he  still  hopes  that  they  may  not  be 
utterly  destitute  both  of  interest  and  utility.  Although  they 
do  not  undertake  positively  to  ascertain  who  the  author  was, 
they  offer  a  fair  test  to  point  out  negatively  who  he  was  not; 
and  to  enable  us  to  reject  the  pretensions  of  a  host  of  per- 
sons, whose  friends  have  claimed  for  them  so  distinguished 
an  honour. 

'  »  Vol.  I.  p.  160.  2  Id.  p.  163.  3  Id.  p.  171. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *61 

From  the  observations  contained  in  this  essay  it  should 
seem  to  follow  unquestionably  that  the  author  of  the  letters 
of  Junius  was  an  Englishman  of  highly  cultivated  educa- 
tion, deeply  versed  in  the  language,  the  laws,  the  constitu- 
tion and  history  of  his  native  country:  that  he  was  a  man  of 
easy  if  not  of  affluent  circumstances,  of  unsullied  honour 
and  generosity,  who  had  it  equally  in  his  heart  and  in  his 
power  to  contribute  to  the  necessities  of  other  persons,  and 
especially  of  those  who  were  exposed  to  troubles  of  any  kind 
on  his  own  account:  that  he  was  in  habits  of  confidential  in- 
tercourse, if  not  with  different  members  of  the  cabinet,  with 
politicians  who  were  most  intimately  familiar  with  the  court, 
and  entrusted  with  all  its  secrets:  that  he  had  attained  an 
age  which  would  allow  him,  without  vanity,  to  boast  of  an 
ample  knowledge  and  experience  of  the  world:  that  during 
the  years  1767,  1768,  1769,  1770,  1771,  and  part  of  1772, 
he  resided  almost  constantly  in  London  or  its  vicinity,  de- 
voting a  very  large  portion  of  his  time  to  political  concerns, 
and  'publishing  his  political  lucubrations,  under  different  sig- 
natures, in  the  Public  Advertiser:  that  in  his  natural  tem- 
per, he  was  quick,  irritable  and  impetuous;  subject  to 
political  prejudices  and  strong  personal  animosities;  but 
possessed  of  a  high  independent  spirit;  honestly  attached  to 
the  principles  of  the  constitution,  and  fearless  and  indefati- 
gable in  maintaining  them;  that  he  was  strict  in  his  moral 
conduct,  and  in  his  attention  to  public  decorum;  an  avowed 
member  of  the  established  church,  and,  though  acquainted 
with  English  judicature,  not  a  lawyer  by  profession. 

What  other  characteristics  he  may  have  possessed  we 
know  not;  but  these  are  sufficient;  and  the  claimant  who  can- 
not produce  them  conjointly  is  in  vain  brought  forwards  as 
the  author  of  the  Letters  of  Junius. 

The  persons  to  whom  this  honour  has  at  different  times, 
and  on  different  grounds  been  attributed  are  the  following: 
Charles  Lloyd,  a  clerk  of  the  Treasury,  and  afterwards,  a 
deputy  teller  of  the  Exchequer;  John  Roberts,  also  a  clerk 
in  the  Treasury  at  the  commencement  of  his  political  life, 
but  afterwards  successively  private  secretary  to  Mr.  Pelham 


#62  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

when  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  member  of  parliament  for 
Harwich,  and  commissioner  of  the  board  of  trade*;  Samuel 
Dyer,  a  man  of  considerable  learning,  and  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Burke  and  of  Dr.  Johnson;  William  Gerard  Hamilton,  ano- 
ther friend  and  patron  of  Mr.  Burke;  Edmund  Burke  him- 
self; Dr.  Butler,  late  bishop  of  Hereford;  the  Rev.  Philip 
Rosenhagen;  Major-General  Charles  Lee,  well-known  for 
his  activity  during  the  American  war;  John  Wilkes;  Hugh 
Macauley  Boyd;  John  Dunning,  Lord  Ashburton;  Henry 
Flood;  and  Lord  George  Sackville. 

Of  the  three  first  of  these  reported  authors  of  the  Letters 
of  Junius,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  observe,  without  entering 
into  any  other  fact  whatever,  that  Lloyd  was  on  his  death- 
bed at  the  date  of  the  last  of  Junius's  private  letters;  an 
essay,  which  has  sufficient  proof  of  having  been  written  in 
the  possession  of  full  health  and  spirits;  and  which,  together 
with  the  rest  of  our  author's  private  letters  to  the  Printer  of 
the  Public  Advertiser,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  proprietor 
of  this  edition,  and  bears  date  January  19th,  1773.  While  as 
to  Roberts  and  Dyer,  they  had  both  been  dead  for  many 
months  anterior  to  this  period:  Lloyd  died,  after  a  lingering 
illness,  January  22d,  1773;  Roberts  July  13th,  and  Dyer  on 
September  15th,  both  in  the  preceding  year. 

Of  the  two  next  reputed  authors,  Hamilton  had  neither 
energy  nor  personal  courage  enough  for  such  an  undertak- 
ing!, anc-  Burke  could  not  have  written  in  the  style  of 
Junius,  which  was  precisely  the  reverse  of  his  own,  nor 

*  Anonymously  accused  of  having  written  these  letters  in  the  Public 
Advertiser,  March  21,  1772,  et  passim. 

|  Hamilton,  from  his  having  once  made  a  brilliant  speech  in  the  lower 
House  of  Great  Britain  and  ever  afterwards  remaining-  silent,  was  called 
Single-speech  Hamilton.  In  allusion  to  this  fact,  and  that  he  was  the  real 
Junius,  there  is  a  letter  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  November  30, 1771, 
addressed  to  William  Junius  Single-speech,  Esq.  The  air  of  Dub- 
lin however,  should  seem,  according*  to  Mr.  Malone's  account  of  him,  to 
have  been  more  favourable  to  his  rhetorical  powers  than  that  of  West- 
minster: for  this  writer  tells  us  that  Mr.  Hamilton  made  not  less  than  five 
speeches  in  the  Irish  Parliament  in  the  single  Session  of  1761 — 2.  Parlia- 
mentary Lo^ic,  Prefip,  xxii. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *63 

could  he  have  consented  to  have  disparaged  his  own  talents 
in  the  manner  in  which  Junius  has  disparaged  them  in  his 
letter  to  the  Printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  dated  Octo- 
ber 5,  1771;  independently  of  which,  both  of  them  solemnly 
denied  that  they  were  the  authors  of  these  letters,  Hamilton 
to  Mr.  Courtney  in  his  last  illness,  as  that  gentleman  has 
personally  informed  the  editor;  and  Burke  expressly  and 
satisfactorily  to  Sir  William  Draper,  who  purposely  interro- 
gated him  upon  the  subject;  the  truth  of  which  denial  is, 
moreover,  corroborated  by  the  testimony  of  the  late  Mr. 
Woodfall,  who  repeatedly  declared  that  neither  of  them 
were  the  writers  of  these  compositions.  Why  Burke  was  so 
early  and  generally  suspected  of  having  written  them  it  is 
not  easy  to  say;  but  that  he  was  so  suspected  is  obvious  not 
only  from  the  opinion  at  first  entertained  by  Sir  William 
Draper,  but  from  various  public  accusations  conveyed  in 
different  newspapers  and  pamphlets  of  the  day;  the  Public 
Advertiser  in  the  month  of  October  containing  one  letter 
under  the  signature  of  Zeno,  addressed  "  to  Junius,  alias 
Edmund,  the  Jesuit  of  St.  Omers*;"  another  under  the  sig- 
nature of  Pliny  Junior,  a  third  under  that  of  Querist,  a  fourth 
under  that  of  Oxoniensis,  and  a  fifth  under  that  of  Scsevola; 
together  with  many  others  to  the  same  effect:  and,  as  has 
already  been  hinted  at,  an  anonymous  collector  of  many  of 
the  letters  of  Junius,  prefixing  to  his  own  edition  certain 
anecdotes  of  Mr.  Burke,  which  he  confidently  denominated 
"  Anecdotes  of  Junius,"  thus  purposely,  but  fallaciously, 
identifying  the  two  charactersf. 

*  See  Note  to  Letter  lxi. 

•f  In  addition  to  the  above  proofs  that  Burke  and  Jtnius  were  not  the 
same  person,  the  editor  might,  refer  to  the  prosecution  which  Mr.  Burke 
instituted  against  Mr.  Woodfall,  the  Printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  and 
conducted  with  the  utmost  acrimony  for  a  paper  deemed  libellous  that  ap- 
peared in  this  journal  in  the  course  of  1783.  Considerable  interest  was 
made  with  Mr.  Burke  to  induce  him  to  drop  this  prosecution  in  different 
stages  of  its  progress,  but  he  was  inexorable.  The  cause  was  tried  at 
Guildhall,  July  15,  lTSi,  and  a  verdict  of  a  hundred  pounds  damages  was 
obtained  against  the  printer;  the  whole  of  which  Was  paid  to  the  prose- 
cutor. It  is  morally  impossible  that  Juxius  could  have  acted  in  this  man- 
ner: every  anecdote  in  the  preceding  sketch  of  his  public  life  forbids  the 
belief  that  lie  could. 


*64  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

If  however  there  should  be  readers  so  inflexible  as  still 
to  believe  that  Mr.  Burke  was  the  real  writer  of  the  Letters 
f  Junius,  and  that  his  denial  of  the  fact  to  Sir  William. 
Draper  was  only  wrung  from  him  under  the  influence  of 
fear,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  even  such  readers  by 
shewing  that  the  system  of  politics  of  the  one  was  in  direct 
opposition  to  that  of  the  other  upon  a  variety  of  the  most 
important  points.  Burke  was  a  decided  partisan  of  Lord 
Rockingham,  and  continued  so  during  the  whole  of  that 
nobleman's  life:  Junius,  on  the  contrary,  was  as  decided  a 
friend  to  Mr.  George  Grenville.  Each  was  an  antagonist  to 
the  other  upon  the  great  subject  of  the  American  Stamp 
Act.  Junius  was  a  warm  and  powerful  advocate  for  trien- 
nial parliaments;  Burke  an  inveterate  enemy  to  them.  To 
which  the  editor  may  be  allowed  to  add,  that  while  Mr. 
Burke  in  correcting  his  manuscripts  for  the  press,  and  re- 
vising them  in  their  passage  through  it,  is  notorious  for  the 
numerous  alterations  he  was  perpetually  making,  the  copy 
with  which  the  late  Mr.  Woodfall  was  furnished  by  Junius 
for  the  genuine  edition  of  his  Letters  contained  very  few 
amendments  of  any  kind. 

The  following  extracts  from  Mr.  Burke's  celebrated 
speech  on  American  taxation,  delivered  April  19,  1774, 
will  put  the  reader  into  possession  of  that  gentleman's  argu- 
ments upon  each  of  the  above  public  questions,  and,  com- 
pared with  the  short  subjoined  extracts  from  Junius,  will 
justify  the  contrast  which  the  editor  has  thus  ventured  to 
offer.  It  will  also  present  the  reader  with  a  brilliant  specimen 
of  the  eloquence  of  both  characters. 

Mr.  Burke  observes,  in  the  course  of  this  celebrated 
speech1,  that  "  In  the  year  1765,  being  in  a  very  private 
station,  far  enough  from  any  line  of  business,  and  not  having 
the  honour  of  a  seat  in  this  house,  it  was  my  fortune,  un- 
knowing and  unknown  to  the  then  ministry,  by  the  inter- 
vention of  a  common  friend  to  become  connected  with  a 
very  noble  person,  and  at  the  head  of  the  treasury  depart- 

1  See  8vo  edit,  of  his  works,  Vol.  II.  p.  389.  ct  seq. 


PRELIMINARY  ESr  KY.  *65 

ment,  [Lord  Rockingham].  It  was  indeed  in  a  situation  of 
little  rank  and  no  consequence,  suitable  to  the  mediocrity  of 
my  talents  and  pretensions.  But  a  situation  near  enough  o 
enable  me  to  see,  as  well  as  others,  what  was  going  on;  and 
I  did  see  in  that  noble  person  such  sound  principles,  such  an 
enlargement  of  mind,  such  clear  and  sagacious  sense,  and 
such  unshaken  fortitude,  as  have  bound  me,  as  well  as  others 
much  better  than  me,  bv  an  inviolable  attachment  to  him 
from  that  time  forward1." 

"  I  think  the  enquiry  lasted  in  the  committee  for  six 
weeks;  and  at  its  conclusion  this  house,  by  an  independent, 
noble,  spirited,  and  unexpected  majority;  by  a  majority  that 
will  redeem  all  the  acts  ever  done  by  majorities  in  parlia- 
ment; in  the  teeth  of  all  the  old  mercenary  Swiss  ol  state,  in 
despite  of  all  the  speculators  and  augurs  of  political  events, 
in  defiance  of  the  whole  embattled  legion  of  veteran  pen- 
sioners and  practised  instruments  of  a  court,  gave  a  total 
repeal  to  the  stamp  act,  and  (if  it  had  been  so  permitted)  a 
lasting  peace  to  this  whole  empire2." 

"  I  will  likewise  do  justice,  I  ought  to  do  it,  to  the  ho- 
nourable gentleman  who  led  us  in  this  house  [General  Con- 
way]. Far  from  the  duplicity  wickedly  charged  on  him,  he 
acted  his  part  with  alacrity  and  resolution.  We  all  felt  in- 
spired by  the  example  he  gave  us,  down  even  to  myself, 
the  weakest  in  that  phalanx.  I  declare  for  one,  I  knew  well 
enough  (it  could  not  be  concealed  from  any  body)  the  true 
state  of  things;  but,  in  my  life,  I  never  came  with  so  much 
spirits  into  this  house.  It  was  a  time  for  a  man  to  act  in. 
We  had  powerful  enemies;  but  we  had  faithful  and  deter- 
mined friends;  and  a  glorious  cause.  We  had  a  great  battle 
to  fight;  but  we  had  the  means  of  fighting;  not  as  now,  when 
our  arms  are  tied  behind  us.  We  did  fight  that  day  and 
conquer3." 

"  I  remember,  Sir,  with  a  melancholy  pleasure,  the  situa- 
tion of  the  hon.  gentleman  [General  Conway]  who  made  the 
motion  for  the  repeal;  in  that  crisis,  when  the  whole  trading 

1  Burke's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  399.  2  Id.  p.  403.  3  Id.  p.  407. 

Vol.  I.  #  l 


*6(>  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

interest  of  this  empire,  crammed  into  your  lobbies,  with  a 
trembling  and  anxious  expectation,  waited  almost  to  a  win- 
ter's return  of  light,  their  fate  from  your  resolutions.  When, 
at  length,  you  had  determined  in  their  favour,  and  your 
doors  thrown  open,  shewed  them  the  figure  of  their  deli- 
verer in  the  well-earned  triumph  of  his  important  victory, 
from  the  whole  of  that  grave  multitude  there  arose  an  in- 
voluntarv  burst  of  gratitude  and  transport.  They  jumped 
upon  him  like  children  on  a  long  absent  father.  They  clung 
about  him  as  captives  about  their  redeemer.  All  England, 
all  America,  joined  in  his  applause.  Nor  did  he  seem  insen- 
sible to  the  b  st  of  all  earthly  rewards,  the  love  and  admira- 
tion of  his  fellow-citizens.  '  Hope  elevated  and  joy  bright- 
ened his  crest.'  I  stood  near  him;  and  his  face,  to  use  the 
expression  of  the  scripture  of  the  first  martyr,  f  his  face  was 
as  if  it  had  been  the  face  of  an  angel.'  I  do  not  know  how 
others  feel;  but  if  I  had  stood  in  that  situation,  I  never  would 
have  exchanged  it  for  all  that  kings  in  their  profusion  could 
bestow.  I  did  hope,  that  that  day's  danger  and  honour  would 
have  been  a  bond  to  hold  us  all  together  for  ever.  But,  alas! 
that,  with  other  pleasing  visions,  is  long  since  vanished. 

"  Sir,  this  act  of  supreme  magnanimity  has  been  repre- 
sented, as  if  it  had  been  a  measure  of  an  administration,  that, 
having  no  scheme  of  their  own,  took  a  middle  line,  pilfered 
a  bit  from  one  side  and  a  bit  from  the  other.  Sir,  they  took 
720  middle  lines.  They  differed  fundamentally  from  the  schemes 
of  both  parties;  but  they  preserved  the  objects  of  both.  They 
preserved  the  authority  of  Great  Britain.  They  preserved 
the  equity  of  Great  Britain.  They  made  the  declaratory  act; 
they  repealed  the  stamp-act.  They  did  both  fully;  because 
the  declaratory  act  was  without  qualification,  and  the  repeal 
of  the  stamp-act  total1" 

"  Sir,  the  agents  and  distributors  of  falsehoods  have,  with 
their  usual  industry,  circulated  another  lie  of  the  same  na- 
ture with  the  former.  It  is  this,  that  the  disturbances  arose 
from  the  account  which  had  been  received  in  America  of 

1  Burke's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  409. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *67 

the  change  in  the  ministry.  No  longer  awed,  it  seems,  with 
the  spirit  of  the  former  rulers,  they  thought  themselves  a 
match  for  what  our  calumniators  choose  to  qualify  by  the 
name  of  so  feeble  a  ministry  as  succeeded:  Feeble  in  one 
sense  these  men  certainly  may  be  called;  for  with  all  their 
efforts,  and  they  have  made  many,  they  have  not  been  able 
to  resist  the  distempered  vigour,  and  insane  alacrity  with 
which  you  are  rushing  to  your  ruin1." 

"  On  this  business  of  America  I  confess  I  am  serious, 
even  to  sadness.  I  have  had  but  one  opinion  concerning  it 
since  I  sat,  and  before  I  sat  in  parliament.  *****  I 
honestly  and  solemnly  declare,  I  have  in  all  seasons  ad- 
hered to  the  system  of  1766,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  I 
think  it  laid  deep  in  your  truest  interests,  and  that,  bv  limit- 
ing the  exercise,  it  fixes  on  the  firmest  foundations,  a  real, 
consistent,  well-grounded  authority  in  parliament.  Until 
you  c  me  back  to  that  system,  there  will  be  no  peace  for 
England2." 

"  No  man  can  believe,  that  at  this  time  of  day  I  mean  to 
lean  on  the  venerable  memory  of  a  great  man,  whose  loss 
we  deplore  in  common.  Our  little  party  differences  have 
been  long  ago  composed;  and  I  have  acted  more  with  him, 
and  certainly  with  more  pleasure  with  him,  than  ever  I  acted 
against  him.  Undoubtedly  Mr.  Grenville  was  a  first-rate 
figure  in  this  country.  With  a  masculine  understanding, 
and  a  stout  and  resolute  heart,  he  had  an  application  undis- 
sipated  and  unwearied.  He  took  public  business  not  as  a 
duty  which  he  was  to  fulfil,  but  as  a  pleasure  he  was  to  en- 
joy; and  he  seemed  to  have  no  delight  out  of  this  house,  ex- 
cept in  such  things  as  some  way  related  to  the  business  that 
was  to  be  done  within  it.  If  he  was  ambitious,  I  will  say  this 
for  him,  his  ambition  was  of  a  noble  and  generous  strain.  It 
was  to  raise  himself  not  by  the  low  pimping  politics  of  a 
court,  but  to  win  his  way  to  power,  through  the  laborious 
gradations  of  public  service;  and  to  secure  himself  a  well- 
earned  rank  in  parliament,  by  a  thorough  knowledge  of  its 

1  Burke's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  414.  2  Id.  p.  439. 


-*68  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

constitution,  and  a  perfect  practice  in  all  its  business.  *  * 
#  #  #  #  #  #  He  was  bred  in  a  profession.  He  was  bred 
to  the  law,  which  is,  in  my  opinion,  one  of  the  first  and 
noblest  of  human  sciences;  a  science  which  does  more  to 
quicken  and  invigorate  the  understanding,  than  all  the  other 
kinds  of  learning  put  together;  but  it  is  not  apt,  except  in 
persons  very  happily  born,  to  open  and  to  liberalize  the  mind 
exactly  in  the  same  proportion1." 

Let  the  reader  compare  the  opinions  contained  in  the 
above  extracts  with  the  following,  taken  almost  at  hazard, 
from  different  productions  of  Junius,  and  he  will  have  no 
difficult^  in  determining  that  the  writer  of  the  one  set  could 
not  be  the  writer  of  the  other. 

"  To  prove  the  meaning  and  intent  of  the  legislature,  will 
require  a  minute  and  tedious  deduction.  To  investigate  a 
question  of  law  demands  some  labour  and  attention,  though 
very  little  genius  or  sagacity.  As  a  practical  profession,  the 
study  of  the  law  requires  but  a  moderate  portion  of  abilities. 
The  learning  of  a  pleader  is  usually  upon  a  level  with  his 
integrity.  The  indiscriminate  defence  of  right  and  wrong 
contracts  the  understanding,  while  it  corrupts  the  heart. 
Subtlety  is  soon  mistaken  for  wisdom,  and  impunity  for 
virtue.  If  there  be  any  instances  upon  record,  as  some  there 
are  undoubtedly,  of  genius  and  morality  united  in  a  lawyer, 
they  are  distinguished  by  their  singularity,  and  operate  as 
exceptions2." 

"  Whenever  the  question  shall  be  seriously  agitated,  I  will 
endeavour  (and  if  I  live,  will  assuredly  attempt  it,)  to  con- 
vince the  English  nation,  by  arguments  to  my  understanding 
unanswerable,  that  they  ought  to  insist  upon  a  triennial,  and 
banish  the  idea  of  an  annual  parliament.  *****  I  am 
convinced  that,  if  shortening  the  duration  of  parliaments 
(which  in  effect  is  keeping  the  representative  under  the  rod 
of  the  constituent)  be  not  made  the  basis  of  our  new  par- 
liamentary jurisprudence,  other  checks  or  improvements 
signify  nothing3." 

1  Burke's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  389. 

3  Vol.  II.  p.  129  of  the  present  edition. 

3  Id.  p.  149. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *69 

<*  When  the  Septennial  Act  passed,  the  legislature  did 
what,  apparently  and  palpablv,  they  had  no  power  to  do; 
but  they  did  more  than  people  in  general  were  aware  of; 
they,  in  effect  disfranchised  the  whole  kingdom  for  four 
years1." 

"  It  would  be  to  no  purpose  at  present  to  renew  a  discus- 
sion of  the  merits  of  the  Stamp  Act,  though  I  am  convinced 
that  even  the  people  who  were  most  clamorous  against  it, 
either  never  understood,  or  wilfully  misrepresented  every 
part  of  it.  But  it  is  truly  astonishing  that  a  great  number  of 
people  should  have  so  little  foreseen  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  repealing  it.  *********  There  was 
indeed  one  man,  [G.  Grenville"|  who  wisely  foresaw  every 
circumstance  which  has  since  happened,  and  who,  with  a 
patriot's  spirit,  opposed  himself  to  the  torrent.  He  told  us, 
that,  if  we  thought  the  loss  of  outstanding  debts,  and  of  our 
American  trade,  a  mischief  of  the  first  magnitude,  such  an 
injudicious  compliance  with  the  terms  dictated  by  the  colo- 
nies, was  the  way  to  make  it  sure  and  unavoidable.  It  was 
tie  moriare,  mori.  We  see  the  prophecy  verified  in  every 
particular,  and  if  this  great  and  good  man  was  mistaken  in 
any  one  instance,  it  was,  perhaps,  that  he  did  not  expect  his 
predictions  to  be  fulfilled  so  soon  as  they  have  been2." 

u  It  is  not  many  months  since  you  gave  me  an  opportu- 
nity of  demonstrating  to  the  nation,  as  far  as  rational  infer- 
ence and  probability  could  extend,  that  the  hopes  which 
some  men  seemed  to  entertain,  or  to  profess  at  least,  with 
regard  to  America,  were  without  a  shadow  of  foundation. 
#######  But  whatever  were  their  views  or  expec- 
tations, whether  it  was  the  mere  enmity  of  party,  or  the  real 
persuasion  that  they  had  but  a  little  time  to  live  in  office, 
every  circumstance  that  I  then  foretold  is  confirmed  by  ex- 
perience. *******  We  find  ourselves  at  last  re- 
duced to  the  dreadful  alternative  of  either  making  war  upon 
our  colonies,  or  of  suffering  them  to  erect  themselves  into 
independent  states.  It  is  not  that  I  hesitate  now  upon  the 

1  Vol.  II  p.  151.  2  Id.  p.  193 


*70  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

choice  we  are  to  make.  Every  thing  must  be  hazarded.  But 
what  infamy,  what  punishment  do  these  men  deserve,  whose 
folly  or  whose  treachery  hath  reduced  us  to  this  state,  in 
which  we  cannot  give  up  the  cause  without  a  certainty  of 
ruin,  nor  maintain  it  without  such  a  struggle  as  must  shake 
the  empire.  *******  Mr.  Conway  since  last  De- 
cember has,  in  the  face  of  the  House  of  Commons,  defended 
the  resistance  of  the  colonies  upon  what  he  called  revolution 
principles.  *******  If  we  look  for  their  motives, 
we  shall  find  them  such  as  weak  and  interested  men  usually 
act  upon.  They  were  weak  enough  to  hope  that  the  crisis  of 
Great  Britain  and  America  would  be  reserved  for  their  suc- 
cessors in  office,  and  they  were  determined  to  hazard  even 
the  ruin  of  their  country,  rather  than  furnish  the  man  [G. 
Grenville]  whom  they  feared  and  hated,  with  the  melancholy 
triumph  of  having  trulv  foretold  the  consequences  of  their 
own  misconduct.  But  this,  such  as  it  is,  the  triumph  of  a 
heart  that  bleeds  at  every  vein,  they  cannot  deprive  him  of. 
They  dreaded  the  acknowledgment  of  his  superiority  over 
them,  and  the  loss  of  their  own  authority  and  credit,  more 
than  the  rebellion  of  near  half  the  empire  against  the  supreme 
legislature.  *******  It  is  impossible  to  conceal 
from  ourselves,  that  we  are  at  this  moment  on  the  brink  of 
a  dreadful  precipice;  the  question  is  whether  we  shall  sub- 
mit to  be  guided  by  the  hand  which  hath  driven  us  to  it,  or 
whether  we  shall  follow  the  patriot  voice  [G.  Grenville's] 
which  has  not  ceased  to  warn  us  of  our  dangers,  and  which 
would  still  declare  the  way  to  safety  and  to  honour1." 

"  Whether  it  be  matter  of  honour  or  reproach,  it  is  at 
least  a  singular  circumstance,  that  whoever  is  hardy  enough 
to  maintain  the  cause  of  Great  Britain,  against  subjects  who 
disown  her  authority,  or  to  raise  his  voice  in  defence  of  the 
laws  and  constitution,  is  immediately  pointed  out  to  the 
public  for  Mr.  Grenville's  friend  ********  It  is  true 
he  professes  doctrines  which  would  be  treason  in  America, 
but  in  England  at  least  he  has  the  laws  on  his  side,  and  if  if 

1  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  xxix.  Vol.  II.  p.  210. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *71 

be  a  crime  to  support  the  supremacy  of  the  British  legisla- 
ture, the  Sovereign,  the  Lords  and  the  Commons  are  as 
guilty  as  he  is.  *####*#  If  the  pretensions  of  the  colo- 
nies had  not  been  abetted  by  something  worse  than  a  faction 
here  the  stamp  act  would  have  executed  itself.  Every  clause 
of  it  was  so  full  and  explicit  that  it  wanted  no  further 
instruction;  nor  was  it  of  that  nature  that  required  a  military 
hand  to  carry  it  into  execution.  For  the  truth  of  this  I  am 
ready  to  appeal  even  to  the  colonies  themselves.  *#*##* 

*  #  *  Your  correspondent  [who  had  answered  Miscell.  Lett. 
xxix.]  confesses  that  Mr.  Grenville  is  still  respectable;  yet 
he  warns  the  friends  of  that  gentleman  not  to  provoke  him, 
lest  he  should  tell  them  what  they  may  not  like  to  hear. 
These  are  but  words.  He  means  as  little  when  he  threatens 
as  when  he  condescends  to  applaud.  Let  us  meet  upon 
the  fair  ground  of  truth,  and  if  he  finds  one  vulnerable 
part  in  Mr.  Grenville's  character,  let  him  fix  his  poisoned 
arrow  there1." 

"  If  there  be  any  thing  improper  in  this  address,  [a  letter 
addressed  to  G.  Grenville]  the  singularity  of  your  present 
situation  will,  I  hope,  excuse  it.  Your  conduct  attracts  the 
attention,  because  it  is  highly  interesting  to  the  welfare  of  the 
public,  and  a  private  man  who  only  expresses  what  thousands 
think,  cannot  well  be  accused  of  flattery  or  detraction.  *  ** 

#  •*  *  *  Xhis  letter,  1  doubt  not,  will  be  attributed  to  some 
party  friend,  by  men  who  expect  no  applause  but  from  their 
dependents.  But  you,  Sir,  have  the  testimony  of  your  ene- 
mies in  your  favour.  After  years  of  opposition,  we  see 
them  revert  to  those  very  measures  with  violence,  with 
hazard  and  disgrace,  which  in  the  first  instance  might  have 
been  conducted  with  ease,  with  dignity  and  moderation. 

"  While  parliament  preserves  its  constitutional  authority, 
you  will  preserve  yours.  As  long  as  there  is  a  real  repre- 
sentation of  the  people,  you  will  be  heard  in  that  great 
assembly  with  attention,  deference  and  respect;  and  if  fa- 
tally for  England  the  designs  of  the  present  ministry  should 

1   Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  xxxi.  Vol.  II.  p. 245. 


#72  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

at  last  succeed,  you  will  have  the  consolation  to  reflect  that 
your  voice  was  heard,  until  the  voice  of  truth  and  reason 
was  drowned  in  the  din  of  arms;  and  that  your  influence  in 
parliament  was  irresistible,  until  every  question  was  decided 
by  the  sword1." 

How  far  the  same  principles  were  supported  by  the  same 
writer  under  the  signature  of  Junius,  the  reader  will  find  in 
Vol.  I.  p.  35.  and  Vol.  II.  p.  90.  and  it  is  not  necessary  to 
copy  farther. 

Mr.  Malone,  in  his  preface  to  a  well-known  work  of  Mr. 
Hamilton,  entitled  Parliamentary  Logic2,  offers  a  variety  of 
remarks  in  disproof  that  this  gentleman  was  the  writer  of 
the  letters,  several  of  which  are  possessed  of  sufficient  force, 
though  few  persons  will  perhaps  agree  with  him  in  believing 
that  if  Hamilton  had  written  them,  he  would  have  written 
them  better.  The  following  are  his  chief  arguments: 

u  Now  (not  to  insist  on  his  own  solemn  asseveration  near 
the  time  of  his  death,  that  he  was  not  the  author  of  Junius3) 
Mr.  Hamilton  was  so  far  from  being  an  ardent  party  man, 
that  during  the  long  period  above  mentioned  [from  Jan. 
1769  to  Jan.  1772]  he  never  closelv  connected  himself  with 
any  party.  *  *  *  *  Notwithstanding  his  extreme  love 
of  political  discussion,  he  never,  it  is  believed,  was  heard 
to  speak  of  any  administration  or  any  opposition  with 
vehemence  either  of  censure  or  of  praise;  a  character  so 
opposite  to  the  fervent  and  sometimes  coarse  acrimony 
of  Junius,  that  this  consideration  alone  is  sufficient  to  settle 
the  point,  as  far  as  relates  to  our  author,  for  ever.  *  *  *  * 
On  the  question — who  zuas  the  author? — he  was  as  free  to 
talk  as  any  other  person,  and  often  did  express  his  opinion 
concerning  it  to  the  writer  of  this  short  memoir;  an  opinion 
nearly  coinciding  with  that  of  those  persons  who  appear  to 
have  had  the  best  means  of  information  on  the  subject.  In  a 

1  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  liii.  Vol.  II.  p.  311. 

2  Page  xxix.  et  stq. 

3  "  It  has  been  said  that  he  at  the  same  time  declared  that  he  knew 
who  was  the  author;  but  unquestionably  he  never  made  any  such  declara- 
tion." Maloxe. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *73 

conversation  on  this  much  agitared  point,  he  once  said  to  an 
intimate  friend,  in  a  tone  between  seriousness  and  pleasantry, 

<■  You  know,  H*******  *n,  I  could  have  written 

better  papers  than  those  of  Junius;'  and  so  the  gentleman 
whom  he  addressed,  who  was  himself  distinguished  for  his 
rhetorical  powers,  and  a  very  competent  judge,  as  well  as 
many  other  persons,  thought. 

u  It  may  be  added,  that  his  style  of  composition  was 
entirely  different  from  that  of  this  writer.  *  *  *  *  That  he 
had  none  of  that  minute  commissariat  knowledge  of  petty 
military  matters,  which  is  displayed  in  some  of  the  earlier 
papers  of  Junius. 

"  And  finally  it  may  be  observed,  that  the  figures  and 
allusions  of  Junius  are  often  of  so  different  a  race  from 
those  which  our  author  [Hamilton]  would  have  used,  that 
he  never  spoke  of  some  of  them  without  the  strongest  disap- 
probation; and  particularly  when  a  friend,  for  the  purpose 
of  drawing  him  out,  affected  to  think  him  the  writer  of 
these  papers;  and  bantering  him  on  the  subject,  taxed  him 
with  that  passage  in  which  a  nobleman,  then  in  a  high 
office,  is  said  to  have  'travelled  through  every  sign  in  the 
political  zodiac,  from  the  scorpion,  in  which  he  slung 
Lord  Chatham,  to  the  hopes  of  a  virgin,'  &c.  as  if  this 
imagery  were  much  in  his  style, — Mr.  Hamilton  with  great 
vehemence  exclaimed,  '  had  I  written  such  a  sentence  as 
that,  I  should  have  thought  I  had  forfeited  all  pretensions  to 
good  taste  in  composition  for  ever!'  " 

Mr.  Malone  further  observes,  that  Hamilton  filL-d  the 
office  of  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  in  Ireland,  from  Sep- 
tember 1763  to  April  1784,  during  the  very  period  in  which 
all  the  letters  of  Junius  appeared  before  the  public;  and 
it  will  not  very  readily  be  credited  by  any  one  that  this 
is  likely  to  have  been  the  exact  quarter  from  which  the 
writer  of  the  letters  in  question  fulminated  his  severe  crimi- 
nations against  government.  The  subject  moreover  of  par- 
liamentary reform,  for  which  Junius  was  so  zealous  an 
advocate,  Mr.  Malone  expressly  tells  us  was  considered  by 
Hamilton  to  be  "  of  so  dangerous  a  tendency,  that  he  once 
Vol.  I.  *  K 


#74  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

said  to  a  friend  now  living,  that  he  would  sooner  suffer  his 
right  hand  to  be  cut  off,  than  vote  for  it." 

The  only  reason  indeed  that  appears  for  these  letters 
having  ever  been  attributed  to  Hamilton  is,  that  on  a  certain 
morning  he  told  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  as  has  been  already 
hinted  at1,  the  substance  of  a  letter  of  Junius  which  he 
pretended  to  have  just  read  in  the  Public  Advertiser;  but 
which,  on  consulting  the  Public  Advertiser,  was  found  not 
to  appear  there,  an  apology  instead  of  it  being  offered  for  its 
postponement  till  the  next  day,  when  the  letter  thus  pre- 
viously adverted  to  by  Hamilton  did  actually  make  its  ap- 
pearance. That  Hamilton,  therefore,  had  a  knowledge  of  the 
existence  and  purport  ©f  this  letter  is  unquestionable;  but 
without  conceiving  him  the  author  of  it,  it  is  easy  to  account 
for  the  fact,  by  supposing  him  (as  we  have  supposed  already) 
to  have  had  it  read  to  him  by  his  friend  Woodfall,  antece- 
dently to  its  being  printed. 

Another  character  that  has  been  started  as  a  claimant  to 
the  Letters  of  Junius,  is  the  late  Dr.  Butler,  bishop  of 
Hereford,  formerly  secretary  to  the  Right  Hon.  Bilson 
Legge,  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  and  afterwards  Lord 
Stawell.  Dr.  Butler  was  a  man  of  some  talents,  and  was 
occasionally  a  political  writer,  and  felt  no  small  disgust  and 
mortification  upon  his  patron's  dismissal  from  office.  But 
he  never  discovered  those  talents  that  could  in  any  respect 
put  him  upon  an  equality  with  Junius.  He  was  moreover  a 
man  of  mild  disposition,  and  in  no  respect  celebrated  for 
political  courage.  To  which  general  remarks,  in  contra- 
vention of  this  gentleman's  claim,  the  editor  begs  leave  to 
subjoin  the  following  extract  of  a  letter  upon  the  subject, 
addressed  by  a  friend  of  Dr.  Butler's,  and  who  himself 
took  an  active  part  in  the  politics  of  the  times,  to  a  high 
official  character  of  the  present  day,  and  which  he  has  been 
allowed  the  liberty  of  copying: — 

"  Mr.  Wilkes  shewed  me  the  letters  he  received  privately 
from  Junius:  parts  of  one  of  these  were  printed  in  the  public 

1   See  Preliminary  Essay,  p  *6 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *75 

papers  at  the  request  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  The  autograph 
was  remarkable — it  was  firm  and  precise,  and  did  not  appear 
to  me  at  all  disguised.  Mr.  Wilkes  had  been  intimate  with 
Bishop  Butler  when  quartered  as  colonel  of  the  militia  at 
Winchester;  and  from  some  very  curious  concurrent  cir- 
cumstances, he  had  strong  reasons  for  considering  that  the 
Bishop  was  the  author,  and  I  had  some  reasons  for  conjec- 
turing the  same.  Yet  I  must  confess,  that  if  these  suspicions 
were  stronger  and  more  confirmed,  yet  I  think  I  should  re- 
quire more  substantial  proofs;  and  my  reasons  are,  that 
from  all  I  was  ever  able  to  learn  of  the  Bishop's  personal 
character,  he  was  incapable  of  discovering,  or  feeling  those 
rancorous  sentiments,  so  unbecoming  his  character  as  a 
christian,  and  his  station  as  a  prelate,  expressed  towards  the 
Duke  of  Grafton,  Lord  North,  Sir  William  Draper,  and 
others — more  especially  the  King.  Nor  do  I  think  that  his 
being  the  sole  depository  of  his  own  secret,  which,  as  Junius 
says,  would  be,  and  I  fancy  rvas,  buried  in  everlasting 
oblivion,  when  he  was  entombed;  would  have  encouraged 
him  to  have  used  such  opprobrious  language." 

The  pretensions  of  the  Rev.  Philip  Rosenhagen,  though 
adverted  to  in  a  preceding  edition  of  these  letters,  are  hardly 
worth  noticing.  He  was  at  one  time  chaplain  to  the  8th  regi- 
ment of  foot;  and  is  said  to  have  endeavoured  to  impose 
upon  Lord  North  with  a  story  of  his  having  been  the  author 
of  the  letters  in  order  to  induce  his  Lordship  to  settle  a  pen- 
sion upon  him.  It  is  sufficient  to  observe,  that  Mr.  Rosenha- 
gen, who  was  a  school-fellow  of  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  con- 
tinued on  terms  of  acquaintance  with  him  in  subsequent  life; 
and  occasionally  wrote  for  the  Public  Advertiser:  but  was 
repeatedly  declared  by  Mr.  Woodfall,  who  must  have  been 
a  competent  evidence  as  to  the  fact,  not  to  be  the  author  of 
Junius's  letters.  A  private  letter  of  Rosenhagen's  to  Mr. 
Woodfall  is  still  in  the  possession  of  his  son,  and  nothing  can 
be  more  different  from  each  other  than  this  autograph  and 
that  of  Junius. 

It  has  been  said  in  an  American  periodical  work  entitled 
l<  The  Wilmington  Mirror,"  that  General  Lee  in  confidence 


*76  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

communicated  to  a  friend  the  important  secret  that  he  was 
the  author  of  these  celebrated  letters;  but,  whether  Lee  ever 
made  such  a  communication  or  not,  nothing  is  more  palpable 
than  that  he  did  not  write  them — since  it  is  a  notorious  fact, 
that  during  the  whole,  or  nearly  the  whole  of  the  period  in 
which  they  successively  appeared,  this  officer  was  on  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe,  travelling  from  place  to  place,  and  occupy- 
ing the  whole  of  his  time  in  very  different  pursuits. 

The  friend  to  whom  this  communication  is  said  to  have 
been  made,  is  a  Mr.  T.  Rodney,  who  declares  as  follows  in 
a  communication  inserted  in  the  above-mentioned  American 
periodical  work. 

"  In  the  fall  of  1773,  not  long  after  General  Lee  had  ar- 
rived in  America,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  spending  an  afternoon 
in  his  company,  when  there  was  no  other  person  present. 
Our  conversation  chiefly  turned  on  politics,  and  was  mutu- 
ally free  and  open.  Among  other  things,  the  Letters  of 
Junius  were  mentioned,  and  General  Lee  asked  me,  who 
was  conjectured  to  be  the  author  of  these  letters.  I  replied, 
our  conjectures  here  generally  followed  those  started  in 
England;  but  for  myself,  I  concluded,  from  the  spii  i| .  style, 
patriotism,  and  political  information  which  they  displayed, 
that  Lord  Chatham  was  the  author;  and  yet  there  vveres  me 
sentiments  there  that  indicated  his  not  being  the  author. 
General  Lee  immediately  replied,  with  considerable  anjma-? 
tion,  affirming,  that  to  his  certain  knowledge,  Lord  Chatham 
was  not  the  author;  neither  did  he  know  who  the  author  was, 
any  more  than  I  did;  that  there  was  not  a  man  in  the  w  odd, 
no,  not  even  Woodfall,  the  publisher,  that  knew  who  the  au- 
thor was;  that  the  secret  rested  solely  with  himself,  and  for 
ever  would  remain  with  him. 

u  Feeling,  in  some  degree,  surprised  at  this  unexpected 
declaration,  after  pausing  a  little,  I  replied:  '  No,  General 
Lee,  if  you  certainly  know  what  you  have  affirmed,  it  can  no 
longer  remain  solely  with  him;  for,  certainly,  no  one  could 
kno  i*  what  you  have  affirmed  but  the  author  himself!' 

"  Kecoliccting  himself,  he  replied:  *  I  have  unguardedly 
committed  myself,  and  it  would  be  but  folly  to  deny  to  you 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  #77 

that  lam  the  author;  but  I  must  request  that  you  will  not  re- 
veal it  during  my  life;  for  it  never  was,  nor  never  will  be 
revealed  by  me  to  any  other.'  He  then  proceeded  to  mention 
several  circumstances  to  verify  his  being  the  author;  and, 
among  them,  that  of  his  going  over  to  the  Continent,  and 
absenting  himself  from  England  most  of  the  time  in  which 
these  Letters  were  first  published  in  London,  &c.  &c.  This 
he  thought  necessary,  lest,  by  some  accident,  the  author 
should  become  known,  or  at  least  suspected,  which  might 
have  been  his  ruin,  had  he  been  known  to  the  court  of  Lon- 
don, &c." 

The  account  from  which  we  have  made  this  extract  was 
reprinted  in  the  St.  James's  Chronicle  for  April  16,  1803, 
which  the  editor  prefaces  by  observing,  "  Of  Mr.  Rodney, 
or  of  the  degree  of  credit  that  may  reasonably  be  attached  to 
his  declaration,  we  know  nothing;  but  the  subject  is  so  curi- 
ous, that  we  think  our  readers  will  not  be  averse  from  having 
their  attention  once  more  drawn  to  it." 

The  public  do  not  in  any  degree  appear  to  have  been  in- 
fluenced either  by  General  Lee's  pretended  assertion,  or  Mr. 
Rodnev's  positive  declaration:  and  this  claim  had  totally  died 
away  like  the  rest,  when  in  1807  it  was  revived  by  Dr.  Gir- 
dlestone  of  Yarmouth,  Norfolk,  who  endeavoured  to  estab- 
lish General  Lee's  pretensions  by  a  comparison  of  Rodney's 
statement  with  Mr.  Langworthy's  memoirs  of  the  general's 
life,  in  a  pamphlet  published  anonymously,  under  the  title  of 
*'  Reasons  for  rejecting  the  presumptive  evidence  of  Mr. 
Almon,  that  Mr.  Hugh  Boyd  was  the  writer  of  Junius,  with 
passages  selected  to  prove  the  real  author  of  the  Letters  of 
Junius."  And  in  consequence  of  this  revival  of  Mr.  Lee's 
claim,  the  editor  feels  himself  called  upon  to  examine  its 
foundation  somewhat  more  in  detail. 

The  passages  selected  are  in  no  respect  convincing  to  his 
mind,  and  do  not  appear  to  have  been  so  to  that  of  the  public. 
But  without  entering  upon  so  disputable  a  question  as  that 
of  a  superiority  of  literary  taste,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  re- 
mark that  the  great  distance  of  General  Lee  from  England 


*78  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

during  the  period  in  which  the  Letters  of  Junius  were  pub- 
lished, together  with  the  different  line  of  politics  which  he 
pursued,  render  it  impossible  that  Lee  could  have  been  the 
author  of  these  letters. 

The  correspondence  of  General  Lee  previous  to  his  quit- 
ting England  for  America,  in  August,  1773,  as  published  by 
Mr.  Langworthy  in  the  memoirs  of  his  life,  and  adverted  to 
in  Dr.  Girdlestone's  pamphlet,  extend  through  a  period  of 
about  thirteen  months,  from  Dec.  1,  1766,  to  Jan.  19,  1768, 
and  give  us  the  following  dates. 

1766,  Dec.  1.      To  the  King  of  Poland,  from  London. 

25.      The  Prince  of  Poland,  the  same. 

1767,  May  1.      Mr.  Coleman,  from  Warsaw. 

2.  Mrs.  Macauley1,  the  same. 

4.  Louisa  C.  the  same. 

4.  Lord  Thanet,  the  same. 

Aug.  16.  King  of  Poland,  Kamineck. 

1768,  Jan.  19.  Sir  C.  Davers,  Dijon. 

The  dates  of  the  letters  written  by  Junius  under  his  occa- 
sional signatures  are  as  follows: 
1767,  April  28.     Poplicola. 

May  28.     The  same  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Draper's,  of  May  21. 
June  24.     Anti-Sejanus,  Jun. 

Aug.  25.     A  Faithful  Monitor,  on  the  subject  of 
Lord  Townshend's  appointment  to  be 
Lord  Lieut,   of  Ireland,  which  took 
place  the  preceding  Aug.  12. 
Sept.  16.     Correggio. 

Oct.  12.     Moderator  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  Octo- 
ber 6. 
22.     Grand  Council. 

31.     No  signature,  in  answer  to  a  letter  of 
Oct.  27. 


1  The  letter  was  not  addressed  to  Mrs.  Macauley,  but  to  Lady  Blake. 
Edit,  of  the  present  work. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *79 

Dec.  5.  Y.  Z.  on  the  King's  speech,  on  opening  the 
parliament  Nov.  24,  1767:  the  receipt 
of  which  will  be  found  acknowledged 
by  the  printer  in  his  usual  method 
among  the  "  answers  to  correspon- 
dents," Nov.  30. 
19.     No  signature,  on  the  subject  of  American 

politics. 
22.  Downright. 
It  is  only  necessary  for  the  reader  to  compare  these  two 
lists  of  dates,  and  places;  as  for  example,  London,  and 
Warsaw,  or  Kamineck,  during  the  two  months  of  May  and 
August,  and  to  observe  the  rapidity  with  which  the  Letters 
of  Junius  were  furnished,  in  answer  to  the  different  subjects 
discussed,  to  obtain  a  full  proof  that  the  latter  list  of  letters 
could  not  have  been  written  by  the  author  of  the  former. 

These  remarks  however  relate  only  to  the  year  1767.  Let 
us  see  how  the  account  stands  for  1769,  being  the  year  in 
which  the  author  first  appeared  before  the  public  under  his 
favourite  signature  (with  the  single  exception  of  Miscel- 
laneous Letter,  No.  lii.)  It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  exactly 
at  what  places  General  Lee  was  residing  during  this  period. 
Langworthy's  memoirs  abound  with  erroneous  dates,  which 
are  not  material  however  to  the  present  question.  The  only 
serviceable  hint  that  can  be  collected  from  them  is,  that  he 
was  rambling  somewhere  or  other  abroad,  and  'l  could 
never  stay  long  in  one  place:"  to  which  the  editor  adds, 
"  that  we  can  collect  nothing  material  relative  to  the  ad- 
ventures of  his  travels,  as  his  memorandum  books  only 
mention  the  names  of  the  towns  and  cities  through  which  he 
|  passed.  That  he  was  a  most  rapid  and  very  active  traveller 
is  certain,"  p.  8.  The  account  furnished  by  Rodney  confirms 
'■  this  statement,  by  telling  us,  "  He  then  proceeded  to  men- 
tion several  circumstances  to  verify  his  being  the  author; 
I  and,  among  them,  that  of  his  going  over  to  the  continent, 
and  absenting  himself  from  England  most  of  the  time  in 
which  these  letters  were  first  published  in  London,  &c.  &c. 
This  he  thought  necessary,  lest,  by  some  accident,  the  author 


*80 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 


should  become  known,  or,  at  least,  suspected,  which  might 
have  been  his  ruin,  had  he  been  known  to  the  Court  of 
London,  &c." 

It  is  clear.,  therefore,  that  during  the  whole  or  the  greater 
part  of  1769,  General  Lee  was  rambling  over  the  continent; 
and  of  course  had  no  possibility  of  keeping  up  a  very  close 
correspondence  with  any  person  at  home.  Yet  the  following 
table  of  the  Letters  of  Junius,  written  either  under  his 
favourite  or  occasional  signatures,  or  privately  to  Mr. 
Woodfall,  will  shew  that  in  the  course  of  this  very  year, 
the  author  maintained  not  less  than  fifty-four  communi- 
cations with  Mr.  Woodfall:  that  not  a  single  month  passed 
without  one  or  more  acts  of  intercourse:  that  some  of  them 
had  not  less  than  seven,  and  many  of  them  not  less  than 
six,  at  times  directed  to  events  that  had  occurred  only  a 
few  days  antecedently:  that  the  two  most  distant  communi- 
cations were  not  more  than  three  weeks  apart,  that  several 
of  them  were  daily,  and  the  greater  number  of  them  not 
more  than  a  week  from  each  other. 


1769. 


April 


January  21. 
February    7. 

1 21. 

March        3. 

18. 

7. 

10. 

12. 

20. 

21. 

24. 

27. 
6. 

30. 
6. 

10. 

12. 

22. 


May 
June 


July 


August 


September     4. 


8. 
15. 
17 

October 

19 

21 

29. 
1 

November 

6 

g 

14 

16 

22 

4 

7. 
8 

December 

10. 
19. 

25. 

5. 
13. 
17. 
19. 

20. 

8. 
12. 
14. 
15. 
16. 
25. 
25. 
29. 

2. 
12. 
19. 
19. 
26. 


There  is  but  one  conclusion  that  can  be  drawn  from  a 
perusal  of  this  table:  which  is,  that  the  writer  of  the  letters 
of  which  it  forms  a  diary,  could  not  have  been  travelling 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *81 

over  the  continent  during  the  year  1769  to  which  it  is  limit- 
ed, and  consequently  that  General  Lee,  who  was  travelling 
over  the  continent,  and  who  appears  to  have  been  chiefly  in 
remote  northern  parts  of  it,  could  not  be  Junius. 

The  editor  has  observed  that  it  is  equally  obvious  General 
Lee  could  not  have  been  Junius,  from  the  different  line  of 
politics  professed  by  the  two  characters;  and  not  merely 
professed  but  fought  for  to  his  own  outlawry  by  the  former. 
Junius,  it  has  been  already  remarked,  was  a  warm  and 
determined  friend  to  Mr.  George  Grenville:  a  zealous  ad- 
vocate for  the  stamp  act,  Mr.  Grenville's  most  celebrated 
measifre;  and  a  decided  upholder  of  the  power  of  the  British 
parliament  to  legislate  for  America,  in  the  same  manner  as 
for  any  county  in  England.  And  it  was  because  Mr.  Lee 
was  an  inveterate  oppugner  of  these  doctrines,  and  was  de- 
termined to  fight  against  them,  and  even  against  his  native 
country,  if  she  insisted  upon  them,  that  he  fled  to  the  United 
States,  took  a  lead  in  their  armies,  and  powerfully  contribu- 
ted to  their  independence.  The  ensuing  extracts  taken  from 
his  letters  contained  in  Mr.  Langworthy's  Memoirs,  give* 
his  own  opinions  in  his  own  words;  and  they  may  be  com- 
pared with  those  of  Junius  that  follow  the  preceding  extracts 
from  Mr.  Burke. 

"  You  tell  me  the  Americans  are  the  most  merciful  people 
on  the  face  of  the  earth:  I  think  so  too;  and  the  strongest 
instance  of  it  is,  that  they  did  long  ago  hang  up  you,  and 
every  advocate  for  the  stamp  act1." 

"  As  to  the  rest  who  form  what  is  called  the  opposition, 
they  are  so  odious  or  contemptible,  that  the  favourite  him- 
self is  preferable  to  them;  such  as  Grenville,  Bedford, 
Newcastle,  and  their  associates.  Temple  is  one  of  the  most 
ridiculous  order  of  coxcombs2." 

"  A  formidable  opposition  is  expected;  but  the  heads  are 
too  odious  to  the  nation  in  general,  in  my  opinion,  to  carry 
their  point.  Such  as  Bedford,  Sandwich,  G.  Grenville, 
and,  with  submission,  your  friend  Mansfield3." 

1  Memoirs,  p.  54,  in  a  letter  to  W.  H.  Drayton,  a  member  of  congress- 
»  lb.  p.  294.  3  lb-  p-297 

Vol.  I.  *  I 


*82  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

'•*  We  have  had  twenty  different  accounts  of  your  arrival 
at  Boston,  which  have  been  regularly  contradicted  the  next 
morning;  but  as  I  now  find  it  certain  that  you  are  arrived,  I 
shall  not  delay  a  single  instant  addressing  myself  to  you.  It 
is  a  duty  I  owe  to  the  friendship  I  have  long  and  sincerely 
professed  for  you;  a  friendship  to  which  you  have  the 
strongest  claims  from  the  first  moment  of  our  acquaintance; 
there  is  no  man  from  whom  I  have  received  so  many  testi- 
monies of  esteem  and  affection;  there  is  no  man  whose 
esteem  and  affection  could  in  my  opinion  have  done  me 
greater  honour.  *********  I  shall  not  trouble  you 
with  my  opinion  of  the  right  of  taxing  America  without 
her  own  consent,  as  I  am  afraid  from  what  I  have  seen  of 
your  speeches,  that  you  have  already  formed  your  creed  on 
this  article;  but  I  will  boldly  affirm,  had  this  right  been 
established  by  a  thousand  statutes,  had  America  admitted 
it  from  time  immemorial,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  every 
good  Englishman  to  exert  his  utmost  to  divest  parliament  of 
this  right,  as  it  must  inevitably  work  the  subversion  of  the 
whole  empire.  ********  On  these  principles,  I  say, 
sir,  every  good  Englishman,  abstracted  of  all  regard  for 
America,  must  oppose  her  being  taxed  by  the  British  par- 
liament; formv  own  part  I  am  convinced  that  no  argument 
(n  t  totally  abhorrent  from  the  spirit  of  liberty,  and  the 
British  constitution,)  can  be  produced  in  support  of  this 
right.  ********  I  have  now,  sir,  only  to  entreat,  that 
whatever  measure  you  pursue,  whether  those  which  your 
real  friends  (myself  among  the  rest)  would  wish,  or  un- 
fortunately those  which  our  accursed  misrulers  shall  dictate, 
you  will  still  believe  me  to  be  personally,  with  the  greatest 
sincerity  and  affection,  yours,  &c.  C.  Lee1." 

It  would  be  waste  of  time  to  pursue  the  claim  of  General 
Lee  any  further:  though  a  multitude  of  similar  proofs  t® 
the  same  effect  might  be  offered  if  necessary. 

Another    character   to    whom    these   letters   have   been 

1  Letter  to  persuade  General  Burgoyne  to  join  the  Americans  Me- 
moirs, p.  523—330.  See  Julius's  opinion  of  General  Burgoyne,  Vol.  I. 
p.  1S9. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *8S 

ascribed  is  Mr.  Wilkes;  but  that  he  is  not  the  author  of 
them  musf  be  clear  to  every  one  who  will  merely  give 
a  glance  at  either  the  public  or  the  private  letters.  Wilkes 
could  not  have  abused  himself  in  the  manner  he  is  occa- 
sionally abused  in  the  former;  nor  would  he  have  said  in  the 
latter  (since  there  was  no  necessity  for  his  so  saving)  "I 
have  been  out  of  town  for  three  weeks1"  at  a  time  when  he 
was  closely  confined  in  the  King's  Bench. 

Of  all  the  pretenders  however  to  the  honour  of  having 
written  the  letters  of  Junius,  Hugh  Macauley  Boyd  has 
been  brought  forward  with  the  most  confidence:  yet  of  all 
of  them  there  is  not  one  whose  claims  are  so  easily  and 
completely  refuted.  It  is  nevertheless  necessary,  from  the 
assurance  with  which  they  have  been  urged,  to  examine 
them  with  some  degree  of  detail. 

Hugh  Macauley  Bovd  was  an  Irishman  of  a  respectable 
family,  who  was  educated  for  the  bar,  which  he  deserted,  at 
an  early  age,  for  politics,  and  an  unsettled  life,  that  per- 
petually involved  him  in  pecuniary  distresses;  and  who  is 
known  as  the  author  of  w  The  Freeholder,"  which  he  wrote 
at  Belfast,  in  the  beginning  of  1776;  "The  Whig,"  con- 
sisting of  a  series  of  revolutionary  papers  which  he  publish- 
ed in  the  London  Courant^  between  November,  1779,  and 
March,  1780,  and  the  u  Indian  Observer,"  a  miscellany  of 
periodical  essays  published  at  Madras  in  17932.  In  his  public 
conversation  he  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  style  and 
principles  of  Junius;  and  in  his  political  effusions  he  perpe- 
tually strove  to  imitate  his  manner;  and,  in  many  instances, 
copied  his  sentences  verbally.  On  this  last  account  the  three 
advocates  for  his  fame,  Mr.  Almon  who  has  introduced 
him  into  his  Biographical  Anecdotes,  Mr.  Campbell  who 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  11.  This  letter  is  dated  Nov.  8,  1;  69-  Wilkes 
entered  the  King's  Bench  prison  April  27,  1768,  and  was  liberated  April 
18,  1770 — See  further  the  private  correspondence  between  JifNlts  and 
Mr-  Wilkes. 

2  He  is  also  said  by  his  friends  to  have  written  various  letters  in  the 
Public  Advertiser,  in  the  years  1769,  1770,  1771,  and  afterwards  in  1779; 
the  former  under  a  questionable  signature,  the  latter  under  that  of  De- 
niocrates  or  Democratic us. 


*84  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

has  published  a  life  of  him,  and  prefixed  it  to  a  new  edition 
of  "  Boyd's  Works,"  and  Mr.  George  Chalmers,  who  has 
entered  largely  into  the  subject,  in  his  "  Appendix  to  the 
Supplemental  Apology,"  have  strenuously  contended  that 
Bovd  and  Junius  were  the  same  person;  an  opinion  which, 
they  think,  is  rendered  decisive  from  the  following  anecdote, 
as  given  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Chalmers  himself. 

"  Boyd  was  in  the  habit  of  frequenting  the  shop  of  Al- 
mon,  who  detected  him,  as  the  writer  of  Junius,  as  early  as 
the  autumn  of  1769.  At  a  meeting  of  the  booksellers  and 
printers,  H.  S.  Woodfall  read  a  letter  of  Junius,  which  he 
had  just  received,  because  it  contained  a  passage,  that  related 
to  the  business  of  the  meeting.  Almon  had  thereby  an  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  the  hand-writing  of  the  manuscript,  without 
disclosing  his  thoughts  of  the  discovery.  'The  next  time  that 
Boyd  called  on  him  in  Piccadilly,  Almon  said  to  him,  *  I 
have  seen  a  part  of  one  of  Junius's  Letters,  in  manuscript, 
which  I  believe  is  vour  hand- writing.'  Royd  instantly  changed 
colour;  and  after  a  short  pause,  he  said,  '  the  similitude  of 
hand  writing  is  not  a  conclusive  fact,'  [proof.]  Now,  Almon 
does  not  deliver  these  intimations,  as  mere  opinions;  but,  he 
speaks,  like  a  witness,  to  facts,  which  he  knows  to  be  true.  It 
is  a  fact,  then,  that  Almon  taxed  Boyd  with  being  the  writer 
of  Jumus's  Letters;  that  Boyd  thereupon  changed  colour;  and 
that  he  only  turned  off  the  imputation,  by  the  obvious  re- 
mark, that  comparison  of  hand-writing  is  not  decisive  evi- 
dence, to  prove  the  writer.  Add  to  this  testimony,  that  Boyd 
was,  by  nature,  confident,  and,  by  habit,  a  man  of  the  town,  a 
sort  of  character,  who  is  not  apt  to  blush.  From  the  epoch  of 
this  detection,  it  was  the  practice  of  Almon,  when  he  was 
asked  who  was  the  writer  of  Junius,  to  say,  *  that  he 
suspected  Junius  was  a  broken  gentleman,  without  a  guinea 
in  his  pocket.'" 

Mr.  Almon's  own  words  in  relating  this  anecdote  are  as 
follows:  l  The  moment  I  saw  the  hand-writing  I  had  a  strong 
suspicion  that  it  was  Mr.  Boyd's,  whose  hand-writing  I  knew, 
having  received  several  letters  from  him  concerning  books." 
And  he  afterwards  adds  in  reference  to  Boyd's  reply  to  him, 


PRFXIM1NAKY  ESSAY.  *85 

a  though  these  words  do  not  acknowledge  the  truth  of  the 
suspicion,  they  do  not,  however,  positively  deny  it1." 

This  reply,  that  "  the  similitude  of  hand-writing  is  not  a 
conclusive  proof,"  is  called  by  Mr.  Chalmers  an  u  obvious 
remark;"  he  might  have  added  that  the  remark  is  just  as 
general  as  it  is  obvious,  and  consequently  that  it  admits  of  no 
particular  deduction.  It  neither  denies  nor  affirms,  but  leaves 
the  question,  or  rather  the  suspicion,  precisely  where  it  was 
at  first. 

But,  say  these  gentlemen,  it  was  preceded  by  a  change  of 
colour:  yet  whether  this  change  were  to  a  flush  or  a  paleness, 
or  any  other  hue  does  not  appear.  Let  it  be  taken  for  grant- 
ed, however,  that  they  mean  Macauley  Boyd  blushed,  and 
consequently  that  he  exhibited,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
a  secret  sense  of  shame:  yet  what  had  that  man  to  be  ashamed 
of,  upon  a  detection  of  this  kind,  who  openly  gloried  in  the 
principles  of  Junius,  who  had  carried  his  own  avowed  senti- 
ments immeasurably  farther,  who  was  for  ever  publicly  imi- 
tating his  style  and  copving  his  phrases? — this  man,  who 
was  "  by  nature  confident,  and  by  habit  a  man  of  the  town,  a 
sort  of  character  who  is  not  apt  to  blush,"  nothing  surely 
could  have  given  him  a  higher  delight  than  to  have  been 
suspected  to  have  been  Junius  himself;  nothing  could  more 
agreeably  hav>  flattered  his  vanity.  His  cheeks  glowed  with 
a  flush  of  rapture  upon  the  supposed  detection,  and  he  could 
not  even  consent  to  dissipate  the  fond  illusion  by  telling  the 
the  whole  truth.  Shame  he  could  not  feel;  and  as  to  the 
passion  of  fear  it  must  not  be  mentioned  for  a  momently/ear 
would  have  made  him  turn  pale,  but  not  have  blushed. 

Yet  these  gentlemen,  in  the  ardour  of  their  pursuit,  prove 
too  much  for  their  own  cause;  since  we  at  length  find  that, 
after  all,  there  was  no  similitude  of  hand-writing  what- 
ever, or  at  least  none  that  could  answer  their  purpose.  The 
letter  shewn  by  Woodfall,  Almon  asserted  to  be  in  the  com- 
mon hand-writing  of  Boyd,  the  hand-writing  employed  by 
him  in  his  common  and  avowed  transactions,  and  that  he 

1  Letter  from  J.  Almon  to  L.  D.  Campbell,  Esq.  Dec.  10,  1798. 


*86  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

knew  it  to  he  Bovcl's  on  this  very  account.  Now  it  so  hap- 
pened that  Mr.  Woodfall  was  also  well  acquainted,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  similar  correspondence,  with  the  hand-writing 
of  Mr.  Boyd;  and  Woodfall,  whose  veracity  could  not  be 
questioned! ,  and  who  had  far  better  opportunities  of  com- 
paring the  autographs  together,  denied  that  the  letters  of  Ju- 
nius were  written  in  the  hand-writing  of  Bovd;  adding,  that 
Aim>n,  from  the  casual  glance  he  had  obtained,  had  con- 
jectured erroneously.  The  difficulty  was  felt  and  acknow- 
ledged; and  the  following  ingenious  expedient  was  devised 
to  get  rid  of  it.  It  was  contended  that  Boyd  had,  about  the 
period  of  Junius's  first  appearance,  accustomed  himself  to 
what  he  used  to  call,  and  his  commentators  and  biographers 
call  after  him,  a  disguised  hand;  and  that  he  uniformly  em- 
ployed this  disguised  hand  in  writing  these  letters,  in  order 
to  prevent  detection.  And  this  ingenious  discovery  was 
afterwards  brought  forward  as  an  evidence  of  Boyd's  good 
sense  and  discretion,  and  an  additional  demonstration  that 
he  was  the  actual  writer  of  these  letters.  "  It  would  require 
strong  proof  indeed,"  says  Mr.  Chalmers,  M  to  satisfv  a 
reasonable  mind,  that  the  writer  of  Junius's  Letters  would 
send  them  to  the  printer  in  his  real  hand-writing.  It  is  im- 
possible to  conceive,  that  such  a  man,  as  Boyd,  would  take 
such  successful  pains  to  disguise  his  hand- writing,  if  he  had 
not  had  some  design  to  deceive  the  world." 

But  this  is  to  involve  the  argument  in  even  more  self- 
contradiction  than  ever.  Junius,  whoever  he  was,  wrote  his 
letters,  we  are  told,  in  a  disguised  hand-writing,  in  order  to 
avoid  dettction:  the  letter  which  Almon  saw  was  not  in  a 
disguised  hand '-writing,  but  in  the  op^n  and  avowed  hand- 
writing of  Boyd,  with  which  Almon  was  well  acquainted, 
and  which  was  made  use  of  bv  Boyd  in  his  common  trans- 
actions and  correspondence.  Upon  their  own  reasoning  there- 
fore, Boyd  could  not  have  been  the  author  of  the  letters  of 
Junius. 

But  we  are  told,  in  reply  to  this  second  difficulty,  that  the 
disguised  hand  writing  of  Bovd,  though  different  from  his 
common  hand-writing,  was  nevertheless  not  so  different,  but 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *87 

that  those  who  were  familiar  with  the  latter  could  easily 
trace  its  origin,  and  identify  it  with  the  former:  M  I  have 
already  proved,"  says  Mr.  Campbell,  "that  those  who  were 
acquainted  with  the  one  would,  upon  inspection  of  the  other, 
discover  a  strong  resemblance  between  them1."  The  result 
of  course-  is,  that  Almon  penetrated  the  deception,  although 
from  a  momentary  glance,  while  Woodfall  was  incapable  of 
doing  so,  notwithstanding  his  superior  opportunities.  Yet 
surely  never  was  such  a  disguise  either  attempted  or  con- 
ceived before.  The  author  wishes,  we  are  told,  to  dissemble 
his  hund-writing,  in  order  to  avoid  detection;  and  he  devises 
a  disguised  hand-writing  that  can  only  be  traced  home,  and 
identified  by  those  who  are  acquainted  with  his  common, 
hand-writing;  as  if  his  common  hand-writing  could  be  iden- 
tified by  strangers  as  a  matter  of  course. 

A  disguised  hand-writing  that  should  conceal  him  from 
all  who  were  ignorant  of  his  real  hand-writing,  and  expose 
him  to  all  who  were  acquainted  with  it,  was  a  truly  brilliant 
invention,  and  altogether  worthy  of  Mr.  Boyd's  country  and 
pretensions.  Yet  after  all,  we  must  not  forget,  that  the  hand- 
writing supposed  to  have  been  seen  by  Almon,  if  Boyd's  at 
all,  was  not  the  mystical,  esoteric  autography,  the  <s§«  y^ecft,' 
ftxrec  of  the  initiated,  the  disguised  character  that  could  be 
detected  by  nobody  but  those  who  were  acquainted  with  his 
common  writing,  but  the  common  and  undisguised  character 
itself,  his  general  and  avowed  hand-writing  employed  on 
purposes  of  ordinary  business,  and  which,  says  Mr.  Almon, 
"  I  knew,"  in  consequence  of  "  having  received  several 
letters  from  him  concerning  books." 

But  this  is  not  the  only  disguise  which  Mr.  Boyd  must 
have  had  recourse  to,  and  which  he  is  admitted  to  have  had 
recourse  to,  if  he  were  the  real  author  of  these  celebrated 
epistles.  He  must  have  disguised  his  usual  style  even  more 
than  his  usual  hand-xuriting ',  and  that  by  the  very  extra- 
ordinary assumption  of  an  excellence  which  does  not  else- 
where appear  to  have  belonged  to  him;  for  it  is  not  pre- 

1  Life  of  Boyd,  p.  157- 


*88  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

tended  by  any  of  his  advocates  that  the  general  merit  of  any 
one  of  his  acknowledged  productions  is  equal  to  the  general 
merit  of  the  letters  of  Junius;  but  merelv  asserted  that 
there  is  in  his  works  a  general  imitation  of  the  manner  of 
the  latter,  together  with  an  occasional  copy  of  his  very 
phrases  and  images,  and  that  he  has  at  times  produced 
passages  not  inferior  to  some # of  the  best  that  Junius  ever 
wrote.  "  Of  all  the  characters,"  says  Mr.  Chalmers  himself, 
"who  knew  Boyd  personally,  I  have  only  met  with  one  gentle- 
man who  is  of  opinion  that  he  was  able  to  write  Junius's 
letters1."  And  Mr.  Campbell  has  hence  conceived  it  neces- 
sary to  offer  two  reasons  for  this  palpable  inferiority  of  style. 
The  one  is,  that  all  the  acknowledged  productions  of  Boyd 
were  written  in  a  hurry, — stans  pede  in  uno — while  the  letters 
of  Junius,  contrary  indeed  to  his  otherwise  uniform  me- 
thod, were  possibly  composed  with  considerable  pains,  and 
corrected  by  numerous  revisions.  The  other  consists  of  a 
long  extract  from  the  Rambler,  in  denial  of  the  position  that 
u  because  a  man  has  once  written  well,  he  can  never  under 
any  circumstances  write  ill2." 

Now  the  whole  of  this  reasoning,  if  reasoning  it  may  be 
called,  is  founded  on  gratuitous  assumptions  alone,  and  may 
be  just  as  fairly  applied  to  any  one  else  of  the  supposed 
writers  of  the  Letters  of  Junius  as  to  Mr.  Boyd.  It  is  ad- 
mitted that  he  occasionally  wrote  passages  of  considerable 
merit;  and  it  is  admitted  also,  that  he  was  an  imitator  of 
Junius's  style,  and  a  frequent  copyist  of  his  very  words 
and  images.  But  this  last  fact  is  against  Boyd,  instead  of 
being  in  his  favour,  for  the  style  of  Junius  is  original  and 
strictly  his  own,  he  is  nowhere  a  copyist,  and  much  less  a 
copyist  of  himself.  Boyd  might  characteristically  write,  as 
he  has  done  in  his  Freeholder,  "  long  enough  have  our  eyes 
ached  over  this  barren  prospect,  where  no  verdure  oj  virtue 
quickens"  because  Junius  before  him  had  written  "  I  lurn 
with  pleasure  from  that  barren  waste  in  which  no  salutary 

1  Supplement,  p.  94.  2  Campbell's  Life  of  Boyd,  p.  31. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *89 

plant  takes  root,  no  verdure  quickens;"  but  Junius  could 
not  write  so,  because  his  genius  was  far  too  fertile  for  him 
to  be  driven  to  the  dire  necessity  of  copying  from  his  own 
metaphors,  and  even  had  he  done  it  in  the  present  instance, 
he  was  too  manly  a  writer  to  have  introduced  into  the  simile 
the  affected  and  contemptible  alliteration  of  "  verdure  of 
virtue." 

If  Boyd  therefore  wrote  Junius,  he  must  have  been 
possessed  of  powers  of  which  he  has  never  otherwise  given 
any  evidence  whatever,  and  must  not  only  have  disguised 
his  hand,  but  as  was  well  observed  on  a  former  occasion  by 
the  late  Mr.  W.  Woodfall,  have  disguised  his  style  at  the 
same  time;  and  this  too  "  in  that  most  extraordinary  way  of 
writing  above  his  own  reach  of  literary  talent,"  judging  of 
his  abilities  from  every  existing  and  acknowledged  document. 
To  conceive  that  a  man  of  versatile  genius  might  disguise 
his  accustomed  style  of  writing  by  adopting  some  other  style 
on  a  level  with  his  own,  is  not  difficult;  but  to  conceive, 
under  the  circumstances  of  his  authenticated  talents,  that 
Boyd  could  disguise  his  avowed  style  by  assuming  that  of 
Junius,  is  to  conceive,  though  the  difference  between  them 
was  not  altogether  so  extreme,  that  a  sign-post  painter  might 
disguise  himself  under  the  style  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  or 
a  street-fiddler  under  that  of  Cramer. 

In  effect  Boyd  appears  to  have  been  an  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  the  writings  of  Junius,  ambitious  enough  to 
try  to  imitate  them,  and  vain  enough  to  wish  to  be  thought 
the  author  of  them.  By  the  deep  interest  he  displayed  in 
their  behalf,  he  once  or  trvlce1  induced  his  wife  to  challenge 
him  with  having  written  them; — when  accidentally  taxed  by 
Almon  with  the  same  fact, he  could  notrestrain  his  feelings, 
and  his  cheeks  flushed  with  rapture  beneath  the  suspicion; 
and  when,  upon  a  visit  to  Ireland  in  the  year  1776,  he  wrote 
his  address  to  the  electors  of  Antrim,  under  the  title  of 
u  The  Freeholder,"  he  so  far  succeeded  by  eulogizing 
Junius,  by  quoting  his  letters,  and  imitating  his  manner, 

1  Campbell's  Life  of  Boyd,  p.  136. 

Vol.  I.  *M 


*90  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

as  no  induce  a  few  other  persons  to  entertain  the  same  idea, 
and,  what  was  of  no  small  gratification  to  him,  to  acquire 
the  honour  of  being  generally  denominated  Junius  the 
second.  Yet,  say  his  advocates,  he  never  dared  to  avow  that 
he  was  Junius,  because  Junius  had  declared  in  his  Dedica- 
tion, "  I  am  the  sole  depository  of  my  own  secret,  and  it 
shall  perish  with  me." 

Upon  the  whole,  however,  these  visits  to  Ireland  are  by 
no  means  favourable  to  Mr.  Boyd's  claims;  for  the  letters  of 
Junius  published  in  August,  1768,  under  the  signatures  of 
Atticus  and  Lucius,  were  written  during  one  of  them;  and 
from  the  rapidity  with  which  they  seized  hold  of  the  events 
of  the  moment,  and  replied  to  the  numerous  vindications 
and  apologies  of  the  government-party,  must  have  been 
xvritten  (not  at  Belfast)  but  in  London,  or  its  immediate 
vicinity1.  While  his  visit  to  the  same  country  in  J  77^  was 

1  Campbell,  in  his  Life  of  Boyd,  p.  22,  relates  the  following  atiepdote  of 
that  gentleman,  which  occurred  during-  the  before -mentioned  visit  to  Ire- 
land in  the  summer  of  1768."  One  evening  while  Mr.  Flood  sat  at  his  own 
table,  after  dinner,  entertaining  a  large  company,  of  winch  Mr.  Boyd  was 
one,  he  received  an  anonymous  note,  enclosing  a  letter  on  the  state  of 
parties,  signed  Sindercombe.  The  note  contained  a  request  that  Mr.  Flood 
would  peruse  tlie  inclosed  letter,  and  that  if  it  met  his  approbation  he  would 
get  it  published,  winch  he  accordingly  did  in  ;i  paper  of  the  following- 
morning,  and  the  letter  produced  a  very  strong  sensation  on  the  public 
mind."  Mr.  Campbell  proceeds  to  state  that  "  every  endeavour  was  made, 
without  effect,  to  discover  the  author:  that  Mrs.  Boyd  always  thought  that 
Sindercombe  was  her  husband's  production,  and  that  many  years  after- 
wards she  was  satisfied  that  her  conjecture  was  founded  in  fact."  If  Mrs, 
Boyd  were  correct  in  her  conjecture,  as  to  her  husband  being  the  author 
of  the  letter  under  this  signature,  it  would,  of  itself,  all  but  indisput- 
ably, prove  that  lie  was  not  the  writer  of  the  Letters  of  Junius;  as  on 
Dec  26,  1772,  nearly  twelve  months  after  Junius  had  ceased  to  publish 
under  iliis  signature,  and  many  months  after  he  had  declined  to  write 
under  any  other,  Sindercombe  addresses  the  following  card  to  him: 

"  For  the  Public  .hfoertiscr. 

a  card.  Dec.  26,  1772. 

"  Sindercombe  laments  that  Junius  is  silent  at  a  season  that  de- 
mands his  utmost  eloquence.  Sindercombe  has  long  waited  with  im- 
patience for  the  completion  of  that  promise,  in  which  every  friend  to  liberty 
is  so  deeply  interested.  Junius  has  long  since  pledged  himself  that  the 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  '  *9i 

chiefly  in  consequence  of  extreme  pecuniary  distress,  which 
had  oppressed  him  for  thf  preceding  eighteen  months  or 
two  years,  and  had  driven  him  from  the  world,  through  a 
fear  of  being  arrested;  such  were  the  opposite  circumstances 
of  Junius,  that  the  latter  was  refusing  at  this  very  moment, 
the  moiety  of  the  profits  resulting  from  the  sale  of  his  own 
edition  of  his  letters,  repeatedly  pressed  upon  him,  and  to 
which  he  was  fairly  entitled;  and  offering,  from  a  competent 
purse,  a  pecuniary  indemnification  to  Woodfall  on  account 
of  his  prosecution  by  the  crown. 

There  is,  however,  a  note  inserted  in  Junius'-  own  edition 
of  these  letters1,  in  relating  to  Lord  Irnham,  and  his  baseness 
to  a  young  and  confidential  friend,  that  has  been  conceived 
by  these  same  gentlemen  as  almost  decisive  in  favour  of 
Mr.  Boyd's  pretensions;  the  young  man  here  alluded  to, 
having  been,  as  it  should  seem,  one  of  Mrs.  Boyd's  guar- 
dians; the  two  families  to  which  the  fact  relates,  from  the 
peculiar  motives  they  possessed  for  keeping  it  a  secret,  not 
being  supposed  to  have  divulged  it  to  any  one,  and  Mrs. 
Boyd  herself  having  only  communicated  it  in  strict  con- 
fidence to  her  husband.  Yet  the  reader  of  the  ensuing  Private 
Letters,  after  witnessing  tne  rapidity  with  which  Junius  be- 
came informed  of  Mr.  Garrick's  intimation  to  the  King, 
and  Swinney's  visit  to  Lord  G.  Sackville,  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  conceiving  that  Junius,  though  totally  unac- 
quainted with  Mr.  Boyd  or  his  family,  might  have  easily 
acquired  a  knowledge  of  secrets  far  more  securely  locked  up 
than  the  present.  In  reality,  from  Mr.  Campbell's  own  rela- 

corrupt  administration  of  Lord  Townshend  in  Ireland  'shall  not  be  lost  to 
the  public.'  He  now  calls  upon  Junius  to  fulfil  that  promise." 

That  is  Boyd,  the  writer  of  Junius,  as  Campbell  contends,  calls  upon 
himself  to  fulfil  a  promise  that  he  had  not  the  smallest  intention  to  per- 
form, as  may  be  seen  by  reference  to  Private  Letter,  No.  63.  Sindercombe 
is  a  signature  of  considerable  peculiarity,  and  never  appeared  in  the  Pub- 
lic Advertiser  during  any  part  of  the  time  that  the  author,  as  Junius,  was 
a  correspondent  in  that  paper,  which  the  reader  will  see  was  from  April 
28, 1767,  to  May  12,  1772.  Edit. 

1  See  Vol.  II.  p.  123,  124,  of  this  work. 


*92  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

tion  of  this  anecdote,  it  seems  rather  a  matter  of  wonder  that 
it  should  have  been  a  secret  to  any  one,  than  that  it  should 
have  been  known  to  Junius  at  the  time  of  his  narrating  it; 
for  it  appears  that  at  least  six  persons  were  privy  to  the 
transaction  almost  from  its  first  existence:  the  debauchee 
and  the  prostitute,  the  injured  bridegroom  and  his  two 
brothers,  and  Mrs.  Boyd  as  a  part  of  the  bridegroom's  fami- 
ly1.— Yet,  from  these  three  slender  facts, — Boyd's  imitation 

1  In  point  of  fact,  the  anecdote  here  referred  to,  was  publicly  known 
and  propagated  not  less  than  three  years  earlier  than  the  first  edition 
of  the  Letters  of  Junius,  in  which  it  is  introduced  as  a  note.  For  it 
appears  in  a  letter  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  April  7,  1769,  with  the 
signature  of  Reccns,  written  by  this  same  Junius;  from  which  the  note 
in  question  is  but  a  mere  transcript,  and  given  without  altering  a  word. 
And  yet  Mr.  Almon,  in  the  preface  to  his  own  edition  of  Junius's  letters, 
in  which  he  has  taken  care  to  bestow  abundant  abuse  on  the  Printer  of 
the  Public  Advertiser  and  his  brother,  because  they  did  not  chuse  to 
unfold  to  him  all  they  were  acquainted  with  on  this  subject,  has  not 
scrupled  to  assert  with  his  usual  confidence,  that  "  this  note  certainly  was 
not  written  till  after  Junius  having  finally  ceased  to  write  under  that 
signature,  collected  his  letters  and  published  them  together,  with  many 
additions;  which  was  in  the  course  of  1772."  Pref.  p.  lvi-  This,  however, 
is  only  one  specimen  of  Mr.  Almon's  general  accuracy  in  the  prosecution 
of  his  favourite  topic:  yet  it  is  useless  to  add  more:  the  death  of  the 
writer  has  put  him  beyond  all  power  of  reply;  nor  should  even  this  have 
been  noticed,  but  to  shew  how  absurd  were  the  pretensions  of  a  man,  so 
vain,  so  precipitate,  and  so  incautious,  to  the  character  of  an  oracle  upon 
this  or  any  other  subject;  and  how  insolent  it  was  in  him  to  charge  others 
with  ignorance,  incapacity  and  falsehood,  who  were  possessed  of  better 
sources  of  information,  and  evinced  a  more  punctilious  adherence  to  truth. 
The  letter  itself  is  as  follows:  and  it  is  copied  for  a  comparison  with  the 
note. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Mr.  Woodtall,  7  April*  1769. 

There  is  a  certain  family  in  this  country,  on  which  nature  seems  to 
have  entailed  an  hereditary  baseness  of  disposition.  As  far  as  their  history 
lias  been  known,  the  son  has  regularly  improved  upon  the  vices  of  his 
father,  and  lias  taken  care  to  transmit  them  pure  and  undiminished  into 
the  bosom  of  his  successor.  In  the  senate,  their  abilities  have  confined 
them  to  those  humble,  sordid  services,  in  which  the  scavengers  of  the 
ministry  are  usually  employed.  But  in  the  memoirs  of  private  treachery, 
they  stand  first  and  unrivalled.  The  following  story  will  serve  to  illustrate 
*.he  character  of  this  respectable  family,  and  to  convince  the  world  that 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY;  *93 

of  the  style  of  Junius,  Almon's  suspicion  concerning  his 
hand-writing,  and  the  anecdote  of  Lord  Irnham,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  a  few  others  of  a  nature  merely  collateral,  and 
which,  when  separated  from  them,  prove  nothing  whatever, 
these  gentlemen  undertake  to  "  regard  it  as  a  moral  certainty 
that  Macauley  Boyd  did  write  the  Letters  of  Junius1." 

The  late  Mr.  Woodfall,  indeed,  made  no  scruple  of  de- 
nying the  assertion  peremptorily,  admitting  at  the  same  time, 
that  he  was  not  absolutely  certain  who  did  write  them.  But 
this  testimony,  it  seems,  though  from  the  printer  of  the 
letters  themselves,  and  who,  moreover,  through  the  whole 
period  of  their  publication,  was  in  habits  of  confidential 
correspondence  with  the  author,  is  of  no  consequence.  Let 
us  see  by  what  curious  process  of  logic  this  testimony  is 
attempted  to  be  invalidated:  the  reader  will  meet  with  it  in 
Mr.  Chalmers's  pamphlet,  who  thus  observes  and  reasons: 

"  A  few  weeks  after  the  publication  of  Almon's  anecdotes, 
in  1797,  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  meeting  the  anecdote  writer 
at  Longman's  shop,  complimented  him  on  his  entertaining 
book;  *  but  said  that  he  was  mistaken,  in  supposing  Mr.  Boyd 

the  present  possessor  has  as  clear  a  title  to  the  infamy  of  his  ancestors,  as 
he  has  to  their  estate.  It  deserves  to  be  recorded  for  the  curiosity  of  the 
fact,  and  should  be  given  to  the  public  as  a  warning  to  every  honest 
member  of  society. 

The  present  Lord  Irnham,  who  is  now  in  the  decline  of  life,  lately 
cultivated  the  acquaintance  of  a  younger  brother  of  a  family,  with  which 
he  had  lived  in  some  degree  of  intimacy  and  friendship.  The  young  man 
had  long  been  the  dupe  of  a  most  unhappy  attachment  to  a  common  prosti- 
tute. His  friends  and  relations  foresaw  the  consequences  of  this  connexion, 
;    and  did  every  tiling  that  depended  upon  them  to  save  him  from  ruin.  But 
he  had  a  friend  in   Lord  Irnham,  whose  advice  rendered  all  their  endea- 
!    vours  ineffectual    This  hoary. letcher,  not  contented  with  the  enjoyment 
of  his  friend's  mistress,  was  base  enough  to  take  advantage  of  the  passions 
1    and  folly  of  a  young  man,  and  persuaded  him  to  marry  her.  He  descended 
,    even  to  perform  the  office  of  father  to  the  prostitute.  He  gave  her  to  his 
!    friend,  who  was  on  the  point  of  leaving  the  kingdom,  and  the  next  night 
lay  with  her  himself. 

Whether  the  depravity  of  the  human  heart  can  produce  any  thing  more 
base  and  detestable  than  this  fact,  must  be  left  undetermined,  until  the 
son  shall  arrive  at  his  father's  age  and  experience.  RECENS. 

1  See  Chalmers's  Supplement,  p.  94.  Campbell's  Life,  173,  277- 


*94  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

to  have  been  the  author  of  Junius's  Letters;  and  then  added, 
with  an  emphasis,  that  Mr.  Boyd  was  not  the  author  of  them.' 
To  these  emphatical  observations  Mr.  Almon  replied,  t  that 
he  had  no  doubt  of  Mr.  Boyd's  being  the  author  of  those 
letters;  that  as  you,  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  never  knew  who 
was  the  author,  you  cannot  undertake  to  say  who  was  not  the 
author  of  those  letters.'  Mr.  Woodfall  departed  without 
making  any  reply.  What  reply  could  he  make?  It  is  absurd  in 
any  man,  who  does  not  know  the  true  author  of  Junius's 
letters,  to  say,  that  Macauley  Boyd  was  not  the  writer  of 
them,  in  opposition  to  affirmative  proofs.  Yet,  Mr.  H.  S. 
Woodfall  afterwards  told  Mr.  L.  D.  Campbell,  that  '  Mr. 
Boyd  was  not  the  writer  of  Junius's  letters,'  without  pre- 
tending, however,  that  he  knew  the  true  author." 

Now  every  one  who  knew  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall,  knew  him 
also  to  be  a  man  of  strict,  unimpeachable  veracity;  a  man  who 
would  not  have  ventured  to  have  spoken  decisively  upon  this 
or  any  other  point,  if  he  had  not  had  very  sufficient  grounds. 
We  are  asked  what  reply  he  could  have  made?  and  are  told 
that  his  negative  assertion  was  absurd  against  the  t.ffirmative 
proofs  offered.  These  affirmative  proofs  have  been  already 
sufficiently  noticed;  our  next  business  then  is  to  state  what 
reply  Mr.  Woodfall  could  have  made  if  he  had  chosen,  and 
perhaps  would  have  made  if  he  had  been  differently  ad- 
dressed, of  the  absurdity  of  which  the  reader  shall  determine 
when  he  has  perused  it:  it  shall  be  founded  upon  negative 
arguments  alone.  Woodfall  well  knew  the  hand-writings  of 
both  Junius  and  Boyd,  and  was  in  possession  of  many 
copies  of  both;  and  knowing  them,  he  well  knew  they  were 
different.  He  well  knew  that  Junius  was  a  man  directly 
implicated  in  the  circle  of  the  court,  and  immediately  privy 
to  its  most  secret  intrigues:  and  that  Boyd  was  very  dif- 
ferently situated,  and  that  whatever  information  he  collected 
was  by  circuitous  channels  alone.  Junius  he  knew  to  be  a 
man  of  affluence,  considerably  superior  to  his  own  wants, 
refusing  remunerations  to  which  he  was  entitled,  and  offering 
reimbursements  to  those  who  suffered  on  his  account: — 
Boyd  to  be  labouring  under  great  pecuniary  difficulties,  and 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  -#95 

ready  to  accept  whatever  was  offered  him;  or,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Mr.  Almon,  "  a  broken  gentleman  without  a 
guinea  in  his  pocket."  Junius  he  knew  to  be  a  man  of  con- 
siderably more  than  his  own  age,  who  from  a  long  and 
matured  experience  of  the  world,  was  entitled  to  read  him 
lessons  of  moral  and  prudential  philosophy;  Boyd  to  be  at 
the  same  time  a  very  young  man1,  who  had  not  even  reached 
hi?  majority,  totally  without  plan,  and  almost  without  ex- 
perience of  any  kind,  who  in  the  prospect  of  divulging  him- 
self to  Woodfall,  could  not  possibly  have  written  to  him 
u  after  a  long  experience  of  the  xvorld,  I  affirm  before  God 
I  never  knew  a  rogue  who  was  not  unhappy2."  Boyd  he 
knew  to  be  an  imitator  and  copyist  of  Junius;  Junius  to  be 
no  imitator  or  copvist  of  any  man,  and  least  of  all  of  himself. 
Junius  he  knew  to  be  a  decided  mixt-monarchist,  who  op- 
posed the  ministry  upon  constitutional  principles;  Boyd  to 
be  a  wild,  random  republican,  who  opposed  them  upon 
revolutionary  views:  Junius  to  be  a  writer  who  could  not 
have  adopted  the  signature  of  Democrates  or  Democraticus; 
Boyd  a  writer  who  could,  and  who,  we  are  told  did  do  so, 
in  perfect  uniformity  with  his  political  creed.  Woodfall,  it 
is  true,  did  not  pretend  to  know  Junius  personally,  but  from 
his  hand-writing,  his  stvle  of  composition,  age,  politics,  rank 
in  life,  and  pecuniary  affluence,  he  was  perfectly  assured  that 
Junius  could  not  be  Boyd. 

It  was  possible  therefore  for  Mr.  H.  S.  Woodfall  to  have 
made  some  reply  if  he  had  chosen;  and  it  was  possible  also 
for  him  to  have  said,  xvithout  absurdity,  and  in  opposition 
to  the  affirmative  proofs  of  his  biographers,  that  Macauley 
Boyd  was  not  the  writer  of  Junius's  Letters. 

A  thousand  other  proofs,  equally  cogent  and  insurmount- 
able, might  be  advanced,  if  necessary,  against  the  pretensions 
of  Mt.  Boyd.  Among  these  let  the  reader  compare  the  let- 
ter of  Junius,  subscribed  Vindex,  March  6,  1771,  Miscel- 

1  Boyd  was  born  in  October  1746,  and  Junius's  first  letter,  under  the 
signature  of  Pophcola,  appeared  in  the  Public  Advertiser  April  28,  1767, 
when  Boyd  had  not,  as  yet,  attained  his  21st  year. 

2  Private  Letters,  No-  44. 


*96  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

laneous  Letters,  No.  xci,  in  which  he  publicly  ridicules 
Mr.  Laughlin  Macleane,  upon  his  defence  of  the  ministry,  in 
regard  to  the  Falkland  Islands.  Mr.  Laughlin  Macleane  is 
well  known  to  have  been  the  best  and  steadiest  friend  that 
Boyd  ever  possessed;  and  a  friend  who  adhered  to  him 
uninterruptedly  from  1764  to  17781,  in  which  year  Macleane 
commenced  a  voyage  to  India  upon  official  business  relating 
to  the  Nabob  of  Arcot.  It  was  Macleane  who,  according  to 
his  biographer,  furnished  Boyd  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
secret  transactions  of  our  own  government,  and  the  intelli- 
gence he  made  use  of  in  relation  to  the  oriental  concerns  of 
the  Nabob  Mahomed  Ali  Khaan;  who  largely  and  liberally 
assisted  him  with  pecuniary  aid  while  at  home,  and  "  faith- 
fully promised  him  he  wouid,  upon  his  return  from  India, 
assist  in  clearing  him  from  all  his  pecuniary  difficulties." 
The  proofs  are  unquestionable,  that  the  above  letter  was 
written  by  Junius;  and  that  he  wrote  it  also  in  contempt  and 
ridicule  of  Laughlin  Macleane,  who  instead  of  being,  as  Mr. 
Campbell  affirms,  an  opponent  of  the  ministry  at  this  time, 
was  an  avowed  defendant  of  them. — Will  Mr.  Boyd's  bio- 
graphers and  advocates,  after  this  anecdote,  so  far  vilify  his 
memory  as  to  contend  that  it  was  written  by  himself? 

Of  all  the  reputed  authors  of  these  celebrated  addresses, 
Dunning,  Lord  Ashburton,  offers  the  largest  aggregate  of 

1  See  Mr.  Campbell's  Life  of  Boyd,  p.  117,  125,  209,  210.  In  p.  141,  he 
gives  us  the  following  account  of  Mr.  Boyd,  in  support  of  his  assertion 
that  he  was  the  writer  of  these  letters.  "  From  this  time  [N  IV.  27,  1771,] 
till  the  20th  of  January  following,  Mr.  Boyd's  whole  time  vas  occupied  in 
examining  the  law  books  and  state  trials  above  mentioned,  and  in  writing 
with  his  usual  secrecy  for  the  Public  Advertiser:  Juxn  s's  elaborate  let- 
ter to  Lord  Mansfield,  in  which  he  strove  hard  to  make  good  his  charge 
against  him,  is  dated  the  21st  of  January,  1772:  about  three  weeks  after 
the  publication  of  this  letter,  Mr.  Boyd  went  to  Ireland;  and  Junius 
'eased  to  write  under  that  signature  for  the  Public  Advertiser."  The 
reader  will  perceive  by  a  reference  to  Private  Letters,  Nos.  40  and  48, 
that  the  letter  to  Lord  Mansfield  was  finished  some  considerable  time 
before  it  made  its  appearance  in  the  Public  Advertiser;  and  by  comparing 
the  dates  of  the  Private  Letters,  subsequent  to  that  publication,  up  to  j 
March  5,  1772,  of  which  there  are  no  less  than  seven,  he  will  be  satisfied 
that  it  was  totally  impossible  for  the  writer  of  the  Letters  of  J  CUIUS  to 
be  in  Ireland  at  the  period  described  by  Mr.  Campbell 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *97 

claim  in  his  favour;  and,  but  for  a  few  facts  which  seem  de- 
cisive against  him,  might  fairly  be  admitted  to  have  been 
the  real  Junius.  His  age  and  rank  in  life,  his  talents  and 
learning,  his  brilliant  wit,  and  sarcastic  habit,  his  common 
residence,  during  the  period  in  question,  his  political  prin- 
ciples, attachments  and  antipathies  conspire  in  marking  him 
as  the  man:  but  unfortunately  for  such  a  conclusion,  Dun- 
ning was  solicitor- general  at  the  time  these  letters  first 
appeared,  and  for  more  than  a  twelvcnonth  afterwards:  and 
Junius  himself  has  openly  and  solemnly  affirmed,  "  I  am  no 
lawyer  by  profession;  nor  do  I  pretend  to  be  more  deeply 
read  than  every  English  gentleman  should  be  in  thelawsof  his 
country.1"  Dunning  was  a  man  of  high  unblemished  honour, 
as  well  as  of  high  independent  principles;  it  cannot  therefore 
be  supposed  that  he  would  have  vilified  the  King,  while  one 
of  the  King's  confidential  servants  and  counsellors:  nor 
would  he,  as  a  barrister,  have  written  to  Woodfall  in  the 
course  of  a  confidential  correspondence,  "  lam  advised  that 
no  jury  will  find"  a  bill2. 

Another  person  who  has  had  a  claim  advanced  in  his 
favour  upon  the  same  subject,  is  the  late  celebrated  Henry 
Flood,  M.  P.  of  Ireland.  This  claim  has  only  been  urged 
within  the  last  few  weeks.  Now,  without  wandering  at  large 
for  proofs  that  Mr.  Flood  could  not  have  been  the  writer  of 
the  Letters  of  Junius,  it  is  only  sufficient  to  call  the  reader's 
attention  to  the  two  following  facts: 

First,  Mr.  Flood  was  in  Ireland  throughout  a  great  part 
of  the  summer  of  1768,  and  at  a  time  when  Junius,  who- 
ever he  may  have  been,  was  perpetually  corresponding  with 
the  printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  and  with  a  rapidity 
which  could  not  have  been  maintained,  not  only  in  Ireland, 
but  even  at  a  hundred,  and  occasionally  at  less  than  fifty 
miles  distance  from  the  British  metropolis.  This  fact  may 
be  collected,  among  other  authorities,  from  the  following 
passage  in  Mr.  Campbell's  Life  of  Boyd,  and  is  just  as 
adverse  to  the  pretensions  of  the  one  as  of  the  other. 

1  Prcfuce,  p.  8.  2  Private  Letters,  No.  18 

Vol.  I.  *  N 


*98  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

"  In  the  summer  of  1 768  Boyd  went  to  Ireland  for  a  few 
months,  on  some  private  business.  During  his  stay  in  Dub- 
lin he  was  constantly  in  the  company  of  Mr.  Flood." 

Next,  by  turning  to  the  Private  Letters  of  Junius,  No. 
44,  of  the  date  of  Nov.  27,  1771,  the  reader  will  find  the 
following  paragraph:  "  I  fear  your  friend  Jerry  Dyson  "will 
lose  his  Irish  pension. — Say  "  received."  The  mark  "  re- 
ceived" occurs  accordingly  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  the 
day  ensuing.  Now  by  turning  to  the  Irish  debates  of  this 
period,  we  shall  find  that  the  question  concerning  this  pen- 
sion was  actually  determined  by  the  Irish  parliament  just 
two  days  before  the  date  of  the  above  mentioned  Private 
Letter,  and  that  Mr.  Flood  was  one  of  the  principal  oppo- 
nents of  the  grant,  a  circumstance  which  precludes  the 
possibility  of  believing  him  to  have  written  the  letter  in 
question.  We  shall  extract  the  article  from  whence  this  in- 
formation is  derived,  from  the  Public  Advertiser  of  Dec. 
18,  1771. 

"  Authentic  copy  of  the  conclusion  of  the  speech  which 
Mr.  Flood  made  in  the  Irish  House  of  Commons,  on  Mon- 
day the  25th  of  November  last,  when  the  debate  on  the  pen- 
sion of  Jeremiah  Dyson,  Esq.  came  on  before  the  committee 
of  supplies: 

" But  of  all  the  burthens  which  it  has  pleased  go- 
vernment to  lay  upon  our  devoted  shoulders,  that  which  is 
the  subject  of  the  present  debate  is  the  most  grievous  and 
intolerable. — Who  does  not  know  Jeremiah  Dyson,  Esq.? — 
We  know  little  of  him  indeed,  otherwise  than  by  his  name 
in  our  pension  list;  but  there  are  others  who  know  him  by 
his  actions.  This  is  he  who  is  endued  with  those  happy 
talents,  that  he  has  served  every  administration,  and  served 
every  one  with  equal  success — a  civil,  pliable,  good-natured 
gentleman,  who  will  do  what  you  will,  and  say  what  you 
please — for  payment. 

"  Here  Mr.  Flood  was  interrupted,  and  called  to  order 

by  Mr.  M ,  who  urged  that  more  respect  ought  to  be 

paid  to  Mr.  Dyson  as  one  of  his  Majesty's  officers,  and,  as 
such,  one  whom  his  Majesty  was  graciously  pleased  to 
repose  confidence  in.  However  Mr.  Flood  went  on. 


PRELIMINARY  ESSAY.  *99 

"  As  to  the  royal  confidence  reposed  in  Mr.  Dyson,  his 
gracious  Majesty  (whom  God  long  preserve)  has  been  gra- 
ciously lavish  of  it,  not  only  to  Mr.  Dyson,  but  to  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Dyson;  and  I  think  the  choice  was  good:  The  royal 
secrets  will,  I  dare  say,  be  very  secure  in  their  breasts,  not 
only  for  the  love  they  bear  to  his  gracious  Majesty,  but  for 
the  love  they  bear  to  themselves.  In  the  present  case,  how- 
ever, we  do  not  want  to  be  informed  of  that  part  of  Mr. 
Dyson's  character — we  know  enough  of  him — every  body 
knows  enough  of  him — ask  the  British  treasury — the  British 
council — ask  any  Englishman  who  he  is,  what  he  is — they 
can  all  tell  you,  for  the  gentleman  is  well  known. — But  what 
have  we  to  do  with  him?  He  never  served  Ireland,  nor  the 
friends  of  Ireland.  And  if  this  distressed  kingdom  was  never 
benefited  by  his  counsel,  interest,  or  service,  I  see  no  good 
cause  why  this  kingdom  should  reward  him.  Let  the  ho- 
nourable members  of  this  house  consider  this,  and  give  their 
voices  accordingly. — For  God's  sake  let  every  man  consult 
his  conscience:  If  Jeremiah  Dyson,  Esq.  shall  be  found  to 
deserve  this  pension,  let  it  be  continued;  if  not,  let  it  be  lop- 
ped off  our  revenue  as  burthensome  and  unnecessary." 

Let  us  proceed  to  the  pretensions  that  have  been  offered 
on  the  part  of  Lord  George  Sackville  as  the  real  Junius. 
The  evidence  is  somewhat  indecisive  even  to  the  present 
hour.  Sir  William  Draper  divided  his  suspicions  between 
this  nobleman  and  Mr.  Burke,  and  upon  the  personal  and 
unequivocal  denial  of  the  latter,  he  transferred  them  entirely 
to  the  former:  and  that  Sir  William  was  not  the  only  person 
who  suspected  his  Lordship  even  from  the  first,  is  evident 
from  the  Private  Letter  of  Junius,  which  asserts  that  Swin- 
ney  had  actually  called  upon  Lord  Sackville  and  taxed  him 
with  being  Junius,  to  his  face1.  This  letter  is,  in  fact,  one 
of  the  most  curious  of  the  whole  collection:  if  written  by 
Lord  George  Sackville,  it  settles  the  point  at  once;  and,  if 
not  written  by  him,  presupposes  an  acquaintance  with  his 
Lordship's  family,  his  sentiments  and  his  connexions  so  in- 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  5. 


*100  PRELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

timate  as  to  excite  no  small  degree  of  astonishment.  Junius 
was  informed  of  Swinney's  having  called  upon  Lord  George 
Sackville,  a  few  hours  after  his  call,  and  he  knew  that  before 
this  time  he  had  never  spoken  to  him  in  his  life.  It  is  cer- 
tain then,  that  Lord  George  Sackville  was  early  and  gene- 
rally suspected,  that  Junius  knew  him  to  be  suspected  with- 
out denying,  as  in  the  case  of  the  author  of  "  The  Whig1, 
&c."  that  he  was  suspected  wrongfully;  and  that  this  noble- 
man, if  not  Junius  himself,  must  have  been  in  habits  of 
close  and  intimate  friendship  with  him.  The  talents  of  Lord 
George  Sackville  were  well  known  and  admitted,  and  his 
political  principles  led  him  to  the  same  side  of  the  question 
that  was  so  warmly  espoused  by  Junius.  It  is  said,  how- 
ever, that  on  one  occasion  his  Lordship  privately  observed 
to  a  friend  of  his,  "  I  should  be  proud  to  be  capable  of  writ- 
ing as  Junius  has  done;  but  there  are  many  passages  in  his 
letters  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  have  written2."  Such  a  de- 
claration, however,  is  too  general  to  be  in  any  way  conclu- 
sive: even  Junius  himself  might,  in  a  subsequent  period, 
have  regretted  that  he  had  written  some  of  the  passages  that 
occur  in  his  letters.  In  the  case  of  his  letter  to  Junia,  we 
know  he  did  from  his  own  avowal.  It  is  nevertheless  pecu- 
liarly hostile  to  the  opinion  in  favour  of  Lord  George  Sack- 
ville, that  Junius  should  roundly  have  accused  him  of  want 
of  courage,  as  he  has  done  in  Vol.  II.  p.  180.  The  facts, 
however,  are  fairly  before  the  reader,  and  he  shall  be  left  to 
the  exercise  of  his  own  judgment. 

1  Private  Letters,  No.  23. 

-  See  Chalmers's  Appendix  to  the  Supplemental  Apology,  p.  ?. 


PRIVATE  LETTERS 


OF 


JUNIUS 


ADDRESSED  TO 


MR.  H.  S.  WOODFALL 


PRIVATE  LETTERS 


OF 


JUNIUS. 


No.  1. 


MR.  WOODFALL. 
Sir,  April  20, 1769.     , 

I  AM  preparing  a  paper,  which  you  shall  have  on  or  before 

Saturday  night.    Advertise  it  for  Monday1.    Junius  on 

Monday. 

C. 

If  any  enquiry  is  made  about  these  papers,  I  shall  rely  on 

your  giving  me  a  hint. 


No.  2. 

Sir,  Friday,  May  5th,  17692. 

It  is  essentially  necessary  that  the  inclosed  should  be  pub- 
lished to-morrow,  as  the  great  question  comes  on  on  Monday, 
and  Lord  Granby  is  already  staggered3. 

If  you  should  receive  an  answer  to  it,  you  will  oblige  me 
much  by  not  publishing  it,  till  after  Monday. 

C. 

1  Junius,  Letter  xi. 

2  This  note  was  addressed  to  Mr.  Woodfall,  with  a  desire  that  it  should 
"  be  opened  by  himself  only." 

3  The  letter  is  printed  in  the  Miscellaneous  Collection,  No.  lv.  and  the 
great  question  alluded  to  was  upon  the  Middlesex  petition  against  the 
seating  of  Col.  Luttrell  for  that  county.  The  debate  took  place  on  Monday 
the  8th  of  May  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  continued  from  half  past 
one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  till  half  past  four  the  next  morning-,  when, 

upon 


*104  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

upon  a  division,  there  appeared  for  the  petition  152,  against  it  221.  The 
speakers  on  this  occasion,  in  favour  of  the  petition,  were  Mr.  Dowdeswell, 
Lord  J.  Cavendish,  Mr.  Wedderburne,  Mr.  Grenville,  Mr.  Cornwall,  Mr. 
Burke,  Mr.  Seymour,  and  Sir  George  Saville:  those  against  it,  Mr.  Stan- 
ley, Sir  G.  Osborne,  Dr.  Blackslone,  Mr.  W.  Ellis,  Mr.  Thurlow,  Mr.  C. 
J.  Fox,  Mr.  Moreton,  and  Sir  F  Norton. 

Inconsequence  of  the  rejection  of  the  petition  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
the  following  was  soon  afterwards  presented  to  the  King;  which  we  in- 
sert, as  we  shall  also,  in  their  due  places,  those  of  London  and  Westmin- 
ster, upon  similar  subjects,  with  a  view  of  getting  some  idea  of  the  gene- 
ral politics  of  the  day,  and  the  warmth  of  the  respective  controversies  that 
distinguished  it. 

"TO  THE  KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 

*'  The  humble  petition  of  the  Freeholders  of  the  County  of  Middlesex. 
"  JMost  gracious  Sovereign, 

"  We,  your  Majesty's  dutiful  and  loyal  subjects,  the  Freeholders  of  the 
County  of  Middlesex,  beg  leave  with  all  affectionate  submission  and  hu- 
mility, to  throw  ourselves  at  your  royal  feet,  and  humbly  to  implore  your 
paternal  attention  to  those  grievances  of  which  this  country  and  the  whole 
nation  complain,  and  those  fearful  apprehensions  with  which  the  whole 
British  empire  is  most  justly  alarmed. 

"  With  great  grief  and  sorrow,  we  have  long  beheld  the  endeavours  of 
certain  evil-minded  persons,  who  attempt  to  infuse  into  your  royal  mind, 
notions  and  opinions  of  the  most  dangerous  and  pernicious  tendency,  and 
who  promote  and  counsel  such  measures  as  cannot  fail  to  destroy  that 
harmony  and  confidence  which  should  ever  subsist  between  a  just  and 
virtuous  Prince,  and  a  free  and  loyal  people. 

"  For  this  disaffected  purpose  they  have  introduced  into  every  part  of 
the  administration  of  our  happy,  legal  constitution,  a  certain  unlimited  and 
indefinite  discretionary  power;  to  prevent  which  is  the  sole  aim  of  all  our 
laws,  and  was  the  sole  cause  of  all  those  disturbances  and  revolutions 
which  formerly  distracted  this  unhappy  country;  for  our  ancestors,  by  their 
own  fatal  experience,  well  knew  that  in  a  state  where  discretion  beg'ins, 
law,  liberty  and  safety  end.  Under  the  pretence  of  this  discretion,  or,  as  it 
was  formerly,  and  has  been  lately  called — Law  of  state — we  have  seen 

"  English  subjects,  and  even  a  member  of  the  British  Legislature,  ar- 
rested by  virtue  of  a  general  warrant  issued  by  a  secretary  of  state,  con- 
trary to  the  law  of  the  land. — 

"Their  houses  rifled  and  plundered,  their  papers  seized,  and  used  as 
evidence  upon  trial. — 

**  Their  bodies  committed  to  close  imprisonment. — 

"  The  Habeas  Corpus  eluded. — 

"  Trial  by  jury  discountenanced,  and  the  first  law  officer  of  the  crown 
publicly  insinuating  that  juries  are  not  to  be  trusted. — 

"  Printers  punished  by  the  ministry  in  the  supreme  court  without  atria! 
by  their  equals,  without  any  trial  at  all. — 

'•  The  remedy  of  the  law  for  false  imprisonment  debarred  and  defeated. — 

"The 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *  105 

"  The  Plaintiff  and  his  Attorney,  for  their  appeal  tothelaw  of  the  land, 
punished  by  expenses  and  imprisonment,  and  made,  by  forced  engage- 
ments, to  desist  from  their  legal  claim.— 

"  A  writing  determined  to  be  a  libel  by  a  court  where  it  was  not  cogniza- 
ble in  the  first  instance;  contrary  to  law,  because  all  appeal  is  thereby  cut 
off,  and  inferior  courts  and  juries  influenced  by  such  predetermination. — 

"  A  person  condemned  in  the  said  courts  as  the  author  of  the  supposed 
libel  unheard,  without  defence  or  trial  — 

"  Unjust  treatment  of  Petitions,  by  selecting  only  such  parts  as  might 
be  wrested  to  criminate  the  petitioner,  and  refusing  to  hear  those  whici. 
might  procure  him  redress. — 

"  The  thanks  of  one  branch  of  the  Legislature  proposed  by  a  minister 
to  be  given  to  an  acknowledged  offender  for  his  offence,  with  the  declared 
intention  of  screening  him  from  the  law. — 

"  Attachments  wrested  from  their  original  intent  of  removing  obstruc- 
tions to  the  proceeding's  of  law,  to  punish,  by  sentence  of  arbitrary  fine 
and  imprisonment,  without  trial  or  appeal,  supposed  offences  committed 
out  of  court. — 

"  Perpetual  imprisonment  of  an  Englishman  without  trial,  conviction,  or 
sentence,  by  the  same  mode  of  attachment,  Wherein  the  same  person  is  at 
once  party,  accuser,  judge,  and  jury. — 

"  Instead  of  the  ancient  and  legal  civil  police,  the  military  introduced  at 
every  opportunity,  unnecessarily  and  unlawfully  patrolling  the  streets  to 
the  alarm  and  terror  of  the  inhabitants  — 

"  The  lives  of  many  of  your  Majesty's  innocent  subjects  destroyed  bv 
military  execution. — 

**  Such  military  execution  solemnly  adjudged  to  be  legal. — 

"  Murder  abetted,  encouraged,  and  rewarded  — 

"  The  civil  magistracy  rendered,  contemptible  by  the  appointment  of 
improper  and  incapable  persons. — 

"  The  civil  magistrates  tampered  with  by  administration,  and  neglecting 
and  refusing  to  discharge  their  duty- — 

"  Mobs  and  riots  hired  and  raised  by  the  ministry,  in  order  to  justify 
and  recommend  their  own  illegal  proceedings,  and  to  prejudice  your 
Majesty's  mind  by  false  insinuations  against  the  loyalty  of  your  Majesty's 
subjects. — 

"The  freedom  of  election  violated  by  corrupt  and  undue  influence,  by 
unpunished  violence  and  murder. — 

"  The  just  verdicts  of  juries,  and  the  opinion  of  the  judges  over-ruled 
by  false  representations  to  your  Majesty;  and  the  determinations  of  the 
law  set  aside,  by  new,  unprecedented,  and  dangerous  means;  thereby  leav- 
ing the  guilty  without  restraint,  and  the  injured  without  redress,  and  the 
lives  of  your  Majesty's  subjects  at  the  mercy  of  every  ruffian  protected  by 
admi  nistration. — 

"  Obsolete  and  vexatious  claims  of  the  crown  set  on  foot  for  partial  and 
election  purposes.— 

"  Partial 

Vol.  I.  *0 


*106  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

"  Partial  attacks  on  the  liberty  of  the  press:  the  most  daring  and  perni- 
cious libels  against  the  constitution  and  against  the  liberty  of  the  subject, 
being  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed,  whilst  the  slightest  libel  against  a  minis- 
ter is  punished  with  the  utmost  rigour.— 

"Wicked  attempts  to  increase  and  establish  a  standing  army,  by  en- 
deavouring to  vest  in  the  crown  an  unlimited  power  over  the  militia, 
which,  should  they  succeed,  must,  sooner  or  later,  subvert  the  constitu- 
tion, by  augmenting  the  power  of  administration  in  proportion  to  their 
delinquency. — 

"  Repeated  endeavours  to  diminish  the  importance  of  members  of  par- 
liament individually,  in  order  to  render  them  more  dependent  on  adminis- 
tration collectively.  Even  threats  having  been  employed  by  ministers  to 
suppress  the  freedom  of  debate;  and  the  wrath  of  parliament  denounced 
against  measures  authorized  by  the  law  of  the  land. — 

"  Resolutions  of  one  branch  of  the  legislature,  set  up  as  the  law  of  the 
land,  being  a  direct  usurpation  of  the  rights  of  the  two  other  branches, 
and  therefore  a  manifest  infringement  of  the  constitution. — 

"  Public  money  shamefully  squandered  and  unaccounted  for,  and  all 
enquiry  into  the  cause  of  arrears  into  the  civil  list  prevented  by  the 
ministry. — 

"Enquiry  into  a  pay-master's  public  accounts  stopped  in  the  Exchequer, 
though  the  sums  unaccounted  for  by  that  pay-master  amount  to  above  forty 
millions  sterling. — 

"  Public  loans  perverted  to  private  ministerial  purposes.— 

"  Prostitution  of  public  honours  and  rewards  to  men  who  can  neither 
plead  public  virtue  nor  services. — 

"  Irreligion  and  immorality  so  eminently  discountenanced  by  your  Ma- 
jesty's royal  example,  encouraged  by  administration,  both  by  example  and 
precept — 

"  The  same  discretion  has  been  extended  by  the  same  evil  counsellors 
to  your  Majesty's  dominions  in  America,  and  has  produced  to  our  suffer- 
ing fellow-subjects  in  that  part  of  the   world,  grievances  and  apprehen- 
sions similar  to  those  which  we  complain  of  at  home.— 
"  Most  gracious  Sovereigfi, 

"  Such  are  the  grievances  and  apprehensions  which  have  long  discon- 
tented and  disturbed  the  greatest  and  best  part  of  your  Majesty's  loyal 
subjects.  Unwilling  however  to  interrupt  your  royal  repose,  though  ready 
to  lay  down  our  lives  and  fortunes  for  your  Majesty's  service,  and  for  the 
constitution  as  by  law  established,  we  have  waited  patiently  expecting  a 
constitutional  remedy  by  the  means  of  our  own  representatives,  but  our 
legal  and  free  choice  having  been  repeatedly  rejected,  and  the  right  of 
election  now  finally  taken  from  us  by  the  unprecedented  seating  of  a  can- 
didate who  was  never  chosen  by  the  county,  and  who,  even  to  become  a 
candidate,  was  obliged  fraudulently  to  vacate  his  seat  in  parliament,  un- 
der the  pretence  of  an  insignificant  place,  invited  thereto  by  the  prior 
declaration  of  a/ minister,  that  whoever  opposed  our  choice,  though  but 
with  four  votes,  should  be  declared  member  for  the  county,  we  see  our- 
selves 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *107 

selves  by  this  last  act,  deprived  even  of  the  franchises  of  Englishmen,  re- 
duced to  the  most  abject  state  of  slavery,  and  left  without  hopes  or  means 
of  redress  but  from  your  Majesty  or  God. 

"Deign  then,  most  gracious  Sovereign,  to  listen  to  the  prayer  of  the 
most  faithful  of  your  Majesty's  subjects;  and  to  banish  from  your  royal 
favour,  trust,  and  confidence,  for  ever,  those  evil  and  pernicious  counsel- 
lors, who  have  endeavoured  to  alienate  the  affection  of  your  Majesty's 
most  sincere  and  dutiful  subjects,  and  whose  suggestions  tend  to  deprive 
your  people  of  their  dearest  and  most  essential  rights,  and  who  have 
traitorously  dared  to  depart  from  the  spirit  and  letter  of  those  laws  which 
have  secured  the  Crown  of  these  realms  to  the  House  of  Brunswick,  in 
which  we  make  our  most  earnest  prayers  to  God  that  it  may  continue 
untarnished  to  the  latest  posterity." 

Signed  by  1565  Freeholders. 


No.  3. 

Sir,  Saturday,  July  15th,  1769. 

I  have  received  the  favour  of  your  note.  From  the  con- 
tents of  it,  I  imagine  vou  may  have  something  to  communi- 
cate to  me;  if  that  be  the  case,  I  beg  you  will  be  particular; 
and  also  that  you  will  tell  me  candidlv  whether  you  know  or 
suspect  who  I  am.  Direct  a  letter  to  Mr.  William  Middle- 
ton1  to  be  left  at  the  bar  of  the  New  Exchange  Coffee  house 
en  Monday  as  early  as  you  think  proper. 

I  am,  Sir,  your  most  obedient,  and 
most  humble  servant, 

C. 


No.  4. 

(Private) 
Sir,  July  17th,  1769. 

Mr.  Newberry  having  thought  proper  to  reprint  my  Let- 
ters3, I  wish  at  least  he  had  done  it  correctly.  You  will 

1 "  Mr.  William  Middleton's  Letter  is  sent  as  desired."  Answer  to  Cor- 
respondents  in  the  P.  A.  of  July  20th,  1769. 

2  Newberry  had  thought  proper  at  this  time  to  publish  a  spurious  and 
surreptitious  edition  of  the  first  fifteen  Letters,  as  printed  in  the  author's 
edition,  under  the  title  of  "  The  Political  Contest;"  and  it  was  these  un- 
authorized publications  that  gave  the  first  idea  of  publishing  a  genuine 
edition  of  the  whole. 


*108  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

oblige  me  much  by  giving  him  the  following  hint1   to-mor- 
row. The  inclosed2  when  you  think  proper. 

"  Mr.  Newberry  having  thought  proper  to  reprint  Ju- 
nius1- Letters,  might  at  least  have  corrected  the  errata,  as 
we  did  constantly. 

Page    1,  Line  13,  for  national  read  rational. 

—  3,  —       4,  —    -was  —  tvere. 

—  5,  —     15,  —  indisputable  —  indispensable. 
Letter  7,  —       4,  —  in  all  mazes  —  in  all  the  mazes. 

—  15,     —     24,  —  Tightest  —     brightest. 

—  48,     —       2,  —  indiscreet  —     indirect." 

I  did  not  expect  more  than  the  life  of  a  newspaper,  but  if 

this  man  will  keep  me  alive,  let  me   live   without  being 

offensive. 

Sjieciosa  qutero  fiascere  tigres. 


No.  5. 

Sir,  July  21st,  1769,  Friday  Night. 

I  can  have  no  manner  of  objection  to  your  reprinting  the 
Letters,  if  you  think  it  will  answer,  which  I  believe  it  might, 
before  Newberry  appeared.  If  you  determine  to  do  it,  give 
me  a  hint,  and  I  will  send  you  more  errata  (indeed  they  are 
innumerable)  and  perhaps  a  Preface.  I  really  doubt  whether 
I  shall  write  any  more  under  this  signature.3  I  am  weary  of 
attacking  a  set  of  brutes,  whose  writings  are  too  dull  to  fur- 
nish me  even  with  the  materials  of  contention,  and  whose 
measures  are  too  gross  and  direct  to  be  the  subject  of  argu- 
ment, or  to  require  illustration. 

That  Swinney4  is  a  wretched  but  a  dangerous  fool.  He 
had  the  impudence  to  go  to  Lord  G.  Sackville,  whom  he 

1  This  request  does  not  appear  to  have  been  complied  with;  as  the  fol- 
lowing answer  to  correspondents  was  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of 
the  18th  of  July: — "  Reasons  why  the  hint  was  not  printed  are  sent  to  the 
last  mentioned  Coffee -house  in  the  Strand,  from  whence  our  old  corres- 
pondent will  be  pleased  to  send  for  them." 

2  Junius,  Letter  xvi. 

3  Set    Dedication,  ;  .  1. 

4  A  Correspondent  of  the  Printer's. 


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TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *109 

had  never  spoken  to,  and  to  ask  him  whether  or  no  he  was 
the  author  of  Junius — take  care  of  him. 

Whenever  you  have  any  thing  to  communicate  to  me,  let 
the  hint  be  thus  C  at  the  usual  place,  and  so  direct  to  Mr. 
John  Fretley,  at  the  same  Coffee-house,  where  it  is  abso* 
lutely  impossible  I  should  be  known. 

I  did  not  mean  the  Latin  to  be  printed. 

I  wish  Lord  Holland  may  acquit  himself  with  honour1.  If 
his  cause  be  good,  he  should  at  once  have  published  that 
account,  to  which  he  refers  in  his  letter  to  the  Mayor2. 

Pray  tell  me  whether  George  Onslow  means  to  keep  his 
word  with  you  about  prosecuting3.  Tes  or  No  will  be  suffi- 
cient. Your  Lycurgus4  is  a  Mr.  Kent,  a  young  man  of  good 
parts  upon  town.  And  so  I  wish  you  a  good  night. 

Yours, 

C. 

1  The  Editor  has  already  observed,  in  the  Preliminary  Essay,  that  Ju- 
nius appears  to  have  uniformly  entertained  a  good  opinion  of,  or  at  least 
a  partiality  for,  Lord  Holland.  The  remark  is  not  new;  it  was  noticed  long* 
ago  by  several  of  his  opponents.  Thus,  in  a  letter  subscribed  by  our  au- 
thor, Anti-Fox,  and  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  October  16th, 
1771,  he  thus  speaks  of  him:  "  I  know  nothing  of  Junius;  but  I  see  plainly 
that  he  has  designedly  spared  Lord  Holland  and  his  family." 

2  See  note  A  at  the  end  of  the  Letter. 

3  See  note  B  at  the  end  of  the  Letter. 

4  LycrJrgus  was  a  frequent  writer  in  the  Public  Advertiser  during  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1769;  and  opposed  the  ministry,  but  with  less  vio- 
lence than  most  of  his  contemporaries. 

- 

He  seems  to  refer  to  a  charge  of  embezzlement  of  the  public  treasure, 
made  in  the  City  Petition  presented  to  his  Majesty,  July  5th,  1769,  of 
which  the  following  is  a  copy: — 

The  humble  Petition  of  the  Livery  of  the  City  of  London  in  Common 
Hall  assembled. 
"  JMost  gracious  Sovereign, 

"  We,  your  Majesty's  dutiful  and  loyal  subjects,  the 
Livery  of  the  City  of  London,  with  all  the  humility  which  is  due  from 
Jree  subjects  to  their  lawful  Sovereign,  but  with  all  the  anxiety  which  the 
Sense  of  the  present  oppressions,  and  the  just  dread  of  future  mischiefs 
produce  in  our  minds,  beg  leave  to  lay  before  your  Majesty  some  of  those 

intolerable 


*110  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

intolerable  grievances  which  your  people  have  suffered  from  the  evil  con- 
duct of  those  who  have  been  intrusted  with  the  administration  of  your 
Majesty's  government,  and  from  the  secret  unremitting'  influence  of  the 
worst  of  counsellors. 

"  We  should  be  wanting  in  our  duty  to  your  Majesty,  as  well  as  to  our- 
selves and  our  posterity,  should  we  forbear  to  represent  to  the  throne 
the  desperate  attempts  which  have  been,  and  are  too  successfully  made, 
to  destroy  that  constitution,  to  the  spirit  of  which  we  owe  the  relation 
which  subsists  between  your  Majesty  and  the  subjects  of  these  realms, 
and  to  subvert  those  sacred  laws  which  our  ancestors  have  sealed  with 
their  blood. 

"  Your  ministers,  from  corrupt  principles,  and  in  violation  of  every 
duty,  have,  by  various  enumerated  means,  invaded  our  invaluable  and  un- 
alienable right  of  trial  by  jury. 

"  They  have,  with  impunity,  issued  general  warrants,  and  violently 
seized  persons  and  private  papers. 

"  They  have  rendered  the  laws  non-effective  to  our  security,  by  evading 
the  Habeas  Corpus. 

"  They  have  caused  punishments,  and  even  perpetual  imprisonment, 
to  be  inflicted  without  trial,  conviction,  or  sentence. 

*'  They  have  brought  into  disrepute  the  civil  magistracy,  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  persons  who  are,  in  many  respects,  unqualified  for  that  im- 
portant trust,  and  have  thereby  purposely  furnished  a  pretence  for  calling 
in  the  aid  of  a  military  power. 

"  They  avow,  and  endeavour  to  establish  a  maxim,  absolutely  inconsis- 
tent with  our  constitution,  that  '  an  occasion  for  effectually  employing  a 
military  force  always  presents  itself  when  the  civil  power  is  trifled  with  or 
insulted?  and  by  a  fatal  and  false  application  of  this  maxim,  they  have 
wantonly  and  wickedly  sacrificed  the  lives  of  many  of  your  Majesty's  in- 
nocent subjects,  and  have  prostituted  your  Majesty's  sacred  name  and 
authority,  to  justify,  applaud,  and  recommend  their  own  illegal  and  bloody 
actions. 

"  They  have  screened  more  than  one  murderer  from  punishment,  and 
in  its  place  have  unnaturally  substituted  reward. 

"  They  have  established  numberless  unconstitutional  regulations  and 
taxations  in  our  colonies.  They  have  caused  a  revenue  to  be  raised  in  some 
of  them  by  prerogative.  They  have  appointed  civil  law  judges  to  try  re- 
venue causes,  and  to  be  paid  from  out  of  the  condemnation  money. 

"  After  having  insulted  and  defeated  the  law  on  different  occasions,  and 
by  different  contrivances,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  they  have  at  length 
completed  their  design,  by  violently  wresting  from  the  people  the  last 
sacred  right  we  had  left,  the  right  of  election:  by  the  unprecedented 
seating  of  a  candidate  notoriously  set  up  and  chosen  only  by  themselves. 
They  have  thereby  taken  from  your  subjects  all  hopes  of  parliamentary 
redress,  and  have  left  us  no  resource,  under  Gorl,  but  in  your  Majesty. 

"  All  this  they  have  been  abl  to  effect  by  corruption;  by  a  scandalous 
misapplication  and  embezzlement  of  the  public  treasure,  and  a  shameful 

prostitution 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *n  1 

prostitution  of  public  honours  and  employments;  procuring  deficiencies  in 
the  civil  list  to  be  made  good  without  examination;  and,  instead  of  pu- 
nishing, conferring  honours  on  a  pay-master,  the  public  deiaulter  of  unac- 
counted millions. 

"  From  ah  unfeigned  sense  of  the  duty  we  owe  to  your  Majesty,  and 
•  to  our  country,  we  have  ventured  thus  humbly  to  lay  before  the  throne 
these  great  and  important  truths,  which  it  has  been  the  business  of  your 
ministers  to  conceal.  We  most  earnestly  beseech  your  Majesty  to  grant 
us  redress.  It  is  for  the  purpose  of  redress  alone,  and  for  such  occasions 
as  the  present,  that  those  great  and  extensive  powers  are  intrusted  to  the 
crown,  by  the  wisdom  of  that  constitution,  which  your  Majesty's  illustrious 
family  was  chosen  to  defend,  and  which  we  trust  in  God,  it  will  for  ever 
continue  to  support." 

Lord  Holland  suspecting  himself  to  be  implicated  in  the  last  paragraph 
but  one  of  the  above  petition,  addressed  the  following  letter  to  the  Lord 
Mayor  upon  this  subject: — 

TO  THE  RIGHT    HONOURABLE  THE  LORD  MAYOR. 

"  My  Lord, 

"  In  a  petition  presented  by  your  Lordship  it  is  mentioned  as 
a  grievance,  Instead  of  punishing,  conferring  honours  on  a  pay -master,  the  pub- 
lic defaulttr  of  unaccounted  millions.  I  am  told  that  I  am  the  pay-master 
here  censured:  may  1  beg  to  know  of  your  Lordship  if  it  is  so?  If  it  is,  I 
am  sure  Mr.  Beckford  must  have  been  against  it,  because  he  knows,  and 
could  have  shewn  your  Lordship  in  writing,  the  utter  falsehood  of  what 
is  there  insinuated. 

"  I  have  not  the  honour  to  know  your  Lordship,  so  I  cannot  tell  what 
you  may  have  heard  to  induce  you  to  carry  to  our  Sovereign  a  complaint 
of  so  atrocious  a  nature. 

"  Your  Lordship,  by  your  speech  made  to  the  King  at  delivering  the 
petition,  has  adopted  the  contents  of  it;  and  I  do  not  know  of  whom  to 
enquire  but  of  your  Lordship  concerning  this  injury  done  to  an  innocent 
man,  who  am  by  this  means  (if  I  am  the  person  meant)  hung  out  as  an 
object  of  public  hatred  and  resentment. 

"  You  have  too  much  honour  and  justice  not  to  tell  me  whether  I  am 
the  person  meant,  and  if  I  am,  the  grounds  upon  which  I  am  thus  charg- 
ed, that  I  may  vindicate  myself,  which  truth  will  enable  me  to  do  to  the 
conviction  of  the  bitterest  enemy;  and  therefore  1  may  boldly  say,  to  your 
Lordship's  entire  satisfaction,  whom  I  certainly  have  never  offended, 
"  I  am,  with  the  greatest  respect, 
"  My  Lord, 

"  Your  Lordship's  most  obedient 

"  And  most  humble  servant, 
"  Holland  House,  Kensington,  "  HOLLAND." 

July  9th,  1769." 
To  this  letter  the  Lord  Mayor  returned  the  following  answer: — 
"  The  Lord  Mayor  presents  his  compliments  to  Lord.  Holland,  and  in 

answer 


*U2         PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

answer  to  the  honour  of  his  Lordship's  letter  delivered  to  him  by  Mr. 
Selwyn,  he  begs  leave  to  say  that  he  had  no  concern  in  drawing  up  the 
petition  from  the  Livery  of  London  to  his  Majesty;  that  he  looks  on  him- 
self only  as  the  carrier,  together  with  other  gentlemen  charged  by  the 
Livery  with  the  delivery  of  it;  that  he  does  not,  nor  ever  did,  hold  himself 
accountable  for  the  contents  of  it,  and  is  a  stranger  to  the  nature  of  the 
supposed  charge  against  his  Lordship. 

"  Mansion  Bouse,  July  10,  1769." 

Mr.  Beckford,  seeing  his  name  implicated  in  this  correspondence, 
\vrote  from  the  country  the  following  letter  to  a  friend,  who  was  a  Live- 
ryman of  the  city:  — 

"  Dear  Sir,  Font/till,  July  15,  1769. 

"  I  am  as  much  surprised  as  you  seem  to  be,  at  seeing  my  name,  and 
papers  in  my  possession,  appealed  to  by  a  noble  Lord. — You  and  my 
friends  in  the  city  think  it  incumbent  on  me  to  vindicate  (as  they  are 
pleased  to  express  themselves)  my  honour  and  character,  which  is  called 
in  question.  The  only  proper  satisfaction  in  my  power  to  give  you  and 
my  other  friends,  is  to  relate  plain  matters  of  fact,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection. 

**  In  the  last  session  of  Parliament,  on  a  question  of  revenue  (as  far  as 
my  memory  serves)  I  did  declare  to  the  House  that  the  public  revenue 
had  been  squandered  away,  and  that  the  money  of  the  nation  had  not 
been  regularly  audited  and  accounted  for. 

"  That  in  the  department  of  the  pay-office  I  had  been  informed  there 
were  upwards  of  forty  millions  not  properly  accounted  for;  that  the  offi- 
cers of  the  King's  Exchequer  were  bound  in  duty  to  see  justice  done  to 
the  public;  that  process  had  issued  out  of  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  and 
that  all  proceedings  for  a  certain  time  had  been  suspended  by  the  King's 
sign  manual.  1  then  did  declare,  that  it  was  an  high  offence  for  any  mi- 
nister to  advise  the  King  to  stop  the  course  of  public  justice,  without  as- 
signing a  very  good  reason  for  such  his  advice. — 1  desired  the  chancellor 
of  the  exchequer,  and  the  lords  of  the  treasury,  who  sat  opposite  to  me, 
to  set  me  right  if  my  information  was  not  well-founded;  but  not  a  single 
word  was  uttered  in  answer  by  any  of  the  gentlemen  in  administration. 

"  After  some  days  had  elapsed,  I  met  my  friend  Mr.  Woodhouse  in 
Westminster  Hall,  he  told  me  I  had  been  misinformed  as  to  what  I  had 
mentioned  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  that  if  I  would  c>"?  him  leave, 
he  would  send  me  a  paper  from  a  noble  Lord,  which  would  convince  me 
of  my  mistake.  The  paper  alluded  to  is  in  London,  I  therefore  cannot 
speak  of  the  contents  with  accuracy  and  precision;  but  this  I  recollect, 
that  the  perusal  of  the  paper  did  not  convince  me  that  all  I  had  heard  was 
false  It  was  a  private  paper,  and  I  do  not  recollect  having  shewn  it  to 
more  than  a  single  person  I  have  no  doubt  Mr.  Woodhouse  has  a  copy 
of  the  paper  by  him,  and  I  hope  he  will  submit  the  contents  to  the  judg 
ment  ol  the  public,  in  vindication  of  an  innocent  man. 

"  I  am.  de  it"  Sir, 
"  Your  ever  faithful  and  affi  ct  humble  servant, 

"  WILLIAM  BtCKFURD." 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *113 

^It  was  in  consequence  of  this  letter  that  Lord  Holland  was  induced  to 
publish  the  account  above  referred  to  by  Junius,  and  again  by  Mr.  Beck- 
ford.  Long  as  it  is,  it  ought  not  to  be  omitted  in  this  place. 

FOR   THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 
Letter  to  H.  S.  Wood/all. 
"  Mr.  Woodfall,  Kingsgate,  July  20,  1769. 

"  Lord  Holland  seeing  in  your  paper  a  letter  from  Mr.  Beckford  to  a 
Liveryman,  of  July  15,  1769,  and  Mr.  Woodhouse  being  at  Spa,  in  Ger- 
many, sends  you  an  authentic  copy  of  the  paper  which  he  sent  by  Mr- 
Woodhouse  to  Mr.  Beckford.  He  hopes  the  perusal  of  it  will  convince 
the  reader  that  all  is  false  that  can  impute  any  crime  to  Lord  Holland. 

"  The  reader  will  see  that  some  of  Lord  Holland's  accounts  were  then 
before  the  auditor;  and  there  are  two  years'  accounts  since  lodged  there. 

"  He  will  see  that  Lord  Holland's  accounts  (voluminous  and  difficult 
beyond  example)  have  not  been  kept  back  from  inclination,  but  necessity; 
and  not  longer  than  those  of  his  predecessors. 

"  He  will  see  (and  is  desired  to  observe  particularly)  that  savings,  so 
far  from  remaining  all  in  Lord  Holland's  hands,  had  been  given  in  and 
voted  in  aid  of  the  public  service,  to  the  amount  of  910,541/.  And  43,533/. 
19s.  7d.  (upon  some  regimental  and  other  accounts  being  adjusted  this 
last  winter)  have  been  since  paid  and  voted. 

"  He  will  read  in  it,  that  Lord  Holland  desired  to  be  shewn  how  he 
could  proceed  faster  than  he  did.  If  nobody  has  shewn  or  can  show  how 
that  might  have  been,  or  may  be  done,  does  he  deserve  either  punishment 
or  censure?  And  had  he  not  a  right  to  think  himself  sure  that  Mr.  Beck- 
ford must  have  been  against  the  article  in  the  petition  relating  to  him, 
because  Mr.  Beckford  knnv,  and  could  have  shewn  the  Lord  Mayor  in  writing, 
the  utter  falsehood  of  ivhat  is  there  insinuated. 

"  Lord  Holland  prints  the  memorial  examined  by  the  Treasury,  and 
the  sign  manual  it  obtained;  stopping  process  (not  accounts)  for  six 
months,  which  neither  did  nor  could  suspend  or  delay  the  pay-master's 
accounts  an  hour. 

HOLLAND." 

OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  ACCOUNTS  OF  THE  PAY-MASTER    GENERAL. 

Why  were  Lord  Holland's  accounts,  as  pay-master  general,  for  the 
years  1757,  1758,  and  1759,  not  delivered  to  the  auditors  before  the  year 
1768? 

ANSWER. 

The  pay-master  general's  officers  being  best  acquainted  with  army  ac- 
counts, are  employed  in  making  up  the  account  of  the  preceding  pay-mas- 
ters. The  accounts  of  the  earls  of  Chatham,  Darlington,  and  Kinnoul,  and 
Mr.  Potter,  were  made  up  by  them,  and  regularly,  and  in  due  course  de- 
livered to  the  auditors. 

Great  as  the  army  and  its  expenses  were  during  the  last  war,  beyond 
all  former  example,  dispersed  in  all  quarters  of  the  world,  and  difficult  as 
it  must  have  been  to  keep  the  accounts  in  any  tolerable  order,  it  will  be 

found 

Vol..  I.  *  P 


#114         PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

found,  upon  examination,  that  the  accounts  of  Lord  Holland,  as  pay-mas- 
ter general,  are  not  further  hack  than  those  of  his  predecessors,  and  that 
his  Lordship's  accounts  are  not  kept  back,  as  has  been  suggested,  from 
inclination,  but  necessity. 

The  late  Mr.  Wilmington's  accounts,  for  two  years  and  a  half,  from 
December,  1743,  to  24th  of  June,  1746,  were  declared  the  15th  of  May, 
1760.  The  earl  of  Chatham's  accounts  for  nine  years  and  a  half,  from  the 
25th  June,  1746,  to  the  24th  oi'December,  1755,  are  not  yet  declared. 

The  earls  of  Darlington  and  Kinnoul  for  the  year  1756,  and  the  earl  of 
Kinnnil's  and  Mr.  Potter's  for  six  months,  to  the  24th  of  June,  1757,  are 
now  before  the  auditors. 

The  accounts  of  Lord  Holland  for  the  years  1757,  1758,  and  1759;  like- 
wise the  accounts  of  his  deputies,  attending  the  army  in  Germany,  from 
the  commencement  to  the  end  of  the  late  war,  are  also  before  the  audi- 
tors for  their  examination,  and  his  Lordship's  account  for  tli£  year  1760, 
is  almost  ready  to  be  delivered  to  them. 

From  the  nature  and  extension  of  army  accounts,  it  is  most  evident  to 
those  that  are  best  acquainted  with  them,  that  it  is  tedious  and  difficult 
to  bring  even  regimental  accounts  to  a  final  adjustment;  other  parts  of  the 
accounts  are  more  so.  Lord  Holland,  in  the  course  of  the  years  1759i 
1760,  1761,  1762,  1763,  and  1764,  has  paid  to  regiments  and  independent 
companies  320,391/.  9*.  llrf.  whose  accounts  are  at  this  time  unadjusted, 
for  want  of  proper  authorities,  and  till  those  authorities  are  obtained,  the 
auditor  will  not  allow  one  shilling  of  said  sum  in  his  Lordship's  accounts. 
To  obtain  those  authorities,  his  Lordship  has  often  repeated  his  so- 
licitations. 

What  is  the  balance  of  cash  in  Lord  Holland's  hands? 

ANSWER. 

The  meaning  of  this  question  can  be  no  other  than,  what  savings  are  in 
Lord  Holland's  hands?  Or,  in  other  words,  how  much  has  the  expense  in 
any  case  fallen  short  of  the  sum  voted? 

As  to  the  savings: — so  far  as  the  pay-office  has  been  enabled  to  state 
the  army  accounts,  they  have  been  given  into  parliament. 

From  services  that  have  fallen  short  of  the  sums  voted,  and  from  monies 
paid  in  by  army  accomptants,  Lord  Holland  directed  accounts  to  be  made 
up  and  laid  before  the  House  of  Commons;  and  accordingly  (out  of  these 
savings  in  Lord  Holland's  hands)  parliament  from  time  to  time  availed 
itself  of  the  following  sums,  viz. 

Voted  in  aid  of  extraordinaries,  to  December  24,  1763, 
Voted  in  the  year  1764,  in  aid  of  German  claims, 
Voted  in  the  year  1765,  in  aid  of  ditto  service, 
Voted  in  the  year  1766,  in  aid  of  extraordinary  services, 
Voted  in  the  year  1767,  in  aid  of  extraordinaries  and^ 
other  services,         ......  j 

Voted  in  the  year  1768,  in  aid  of  the  supply, 

910,541  18    3 


/. 

239,966 

170,906 

251,740 

60,638 

s. 

1 
2 
2 
2 

d 

4 
8 

7 

10 

171,571 

|3 

a 

15,719 

15 

7 

TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *H5 

His  Lordship  could  by  no  other  means  ascertain  and  give  into  parlia- 
ment the  savings  on  the  votes  for  the  army,  but  by  the  final  adjustment 
of  army  accounts;  what  further  savings  may  be,  is  very  uncertain,  as  they 
eannot  be  known  before  the  services  are  absolutely  determined  and 
closed. 

His  Lordship  is  very  sorry  to  say  it,  that  in  the  years  1759,  1760,  1761, 
176  ?,  1763,  and  1764,  there  are  not  less  than  fifty-six  regiments  and  com- 
panies now  standing  open  and  unadjusted,  for  want  of  authorities;  and  in 
his  ledgers  there  are  accounts  to  a  much  greater  extent,  as  the  pay  of 
staff'  officers,  8tc.  fccc. 

It  may  be  seen  here  that  though  Mr.  Winnington  died  in  April,  1746, 
and  his  executor,  Mr.  Ingram,  used  all  possible  industry  to  close  his  ac- 
counts, they  could  not  be  closed  till  1760;  fourteen  years.  The  Earl  of 
Chatham  went  out  in  December,  1755,  yet  are  not  his  accounts  closed  till 
1768;  thirteen  years.  The  Earl  of  Kinnoul's  are  not  closed  yet,  though  he 
has  been  out  of  the  office  eleven  years.  Lord  Holland  has  been  out  three 
years  and  a  half.  Where  is  the  wonder  his  are  not  closed? 

If  those  who  complain  will  shew  Lord  Holland  how  he  can  proceed 
faster  than  he  does,  he  will  be  very  much  obliged  to  them  Let  it  be  ob- 
served, that  he  has  before  the  auditors  already,  accounts  for  more  years 
than  Mr.  Winnington  or  Lord  Kinnoal  had  to  account  for. 


MEMORIAL  FOR    LORD  HOLLAND  TO   HAVE   LONGER  TIME    TO  MAKE    UP 
HIS  ACCOUNTS   AS  PAY-MASTER  GENERAL. 

May  it  please  your  Lordships, 

I  beg  to  inform  your  Lordships  that  a  process  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
sheriffs  of  Middlesex  against  me  to  account  to  his  Majesty  for  the  monies 
imprestedto  me,  as  pay-m  sum-  general  of  his  Majesty's  forces. 

Imost  humbly  apprehend  that  the  regular  ordinary  course  of  accounting 
in  the  Exchequer  was  calculated  (when  established)  for  transactions  at 
home,  which  are  easily  and  readily  to  be  collected  and  made  up  at  short 
periods  of  time. 

The  accounts  of  the  army  when  employed  abroad,  particularly,  must  un 
avoidably  be  much  in  arrear  from  the  nature  of  the  service. 

The  army  payments  are  necessarily  in  arrear;  and  articles  from  acci- 
dents inevitable  are  obliged  to  remain  often  open  a  long  time  before  they 
can  finally  be  closed. 

The  accounts  of  the  last  war  are  voluminous  and  difficult  beyond  ex- 
ample. The  great  variety  of  operations,  and  the  very  great  distance  of 
the  troops,  made,  and  must  make,  the  correspondence,  and  adjusting 
those  accounts  with  the  pay-masters  and  accountants  attending  them, 
very  slowund  tedious.  These  therefore  will  require  longer  time  to  make 
up,  both  from  their  bulk  and  difficulty. 

During  the  course  of  a  war,  the  troops  constantly  changing  and  moving, 
and  the  service  in  the  utmost  hurry,  it  cannot  then  be  done  with  the 
order  and  regularity  absolutely  necessary.  Since  the  war  the  utmost  dili- 
gence has  been  used  in  them    The  great  intricate  article  of  Foreign  ex- 
pense. 


*116         PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

pense,  (viz.  the  German)  has  been  got  together  for  the  whole  time  (which3 
after  the  former  war,  was  several  years  about;)  and  one  year  and  an  half's 
general  account  is  now  made  out,  and  ready  to  be  laid  before  the  auditors; 
the  rest  will  regularly  be  laid  before  them  as  fast  as  it  is  possible  to 
make  them  up.  Though  I  have  been  two  years  out  of  employment,  the 
payments  for  my  time  are  not  yet  completed. 

I  therefore  pray  your  Lordships  will  be  pleased  to  obtain  his  Majesty's 
warrant,  granting  me  longer  time  for  making  up  my  accounts  as  pay-mas- 
ter general  of  Ms  Majesty's  forces. 
Pay  Office,  Morse  Guards,  Which  is,  &.C  &c. 

25th  June,  1767.  HOLLAND . 


KING'S  WARRANT,    STAY    OF    PROCESS    AGAINST  LORD    HOLLAND    FOR 
SIX  MONTHS. 

Copy. 
George  R. 
Whereas  our  right  trusty,  and  well-beloved  Henry  Lord  Holland  hath, 
by  the  annexed  memorial,  represented,  that  from  several  unavoidable 
causes  and  difficulties  he  hath  been  prevented  making  up  his  accompts, 
as  late  pay-master  general  of  our  forces;  and  we  having  taken  the  said 
matter  into  our  royal  consideration,  are  graciously  pleased  to  grant  unto 
him  a  farther  time  for  making  up  his  said  accompts.  Our  will  and  pleasure 
therefore  is,  and  we  do  hereby  direct,  authorize,  and  require  you  to  cause 
all  process  against  the  said  Henry  Lord  Holland  for  his  accompts,  as  late 
pay -master  general  of  our  forces,  to  be  stayed  for  and  during  the  term  of 
six  months,  computed  from  the  day  of  the  date  hereof.  And  for  so  doing 
this  shall  be  your  warrant  Given  at  our  court  at  Saint  James's,  the  eighth 
day  of  July,  1767,  in  the  seventh  year  of  our  reign. 

By  his  Majesty's  command, 

GRAFTON. 

C.  TOWNSHEND. 

T.  TOWNSHEND. 

To  our  right  trusty,  and  well-heloved  Samuel  Lord  Marsham,  our  Re- 
membrancer in  our  Court  of  Exchequer. 


B. 

The  history  of  this  dispute  is  as  follows.  In  the  Public  Advertiser  of 
July  14,  1769,  the  following  letter  made  its  appearance,  addressed 

TO  THE  RIGHT  HON.  GEORGE  ONSLOW,  ESQ. 

Sir, 

I  have  heard  from  very  good  authority  that  one  of  the  Lords  of  the 

Treasury  h:.s  lateh  gained  a  thousand  pounds  in  a  very  common  and  usunl 

manner,  which  is  yet  likely  to  be  attended  with  a  very  uncommon  and 

unusual  consequence.  Mr.  ...  <•      applied  to  the  Right  Honourable  Mr 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  #117 

■  for  his  interest  for  a  certain  lucrative  post  in  America.  The  gen- 
tleman was  informed  that  a  thousand  pounds  placed  in  the  hands  of  Mrs. 
— — —  would  insure  him  the  place.  Mr.  — — —  not  having  the  money, 

prevailed  on  Colonel to  join  with  him  in  a  bond  for  that  sum  to  the 

lady  to  whom  he  was  directed.  So  far,  Sir,  all  is  in  the  common  track: 
What  follows  is  the  wonderful  part  of  the  transaction.  This  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  kept  his  word,  and  the  gentleman  was  appointed  to  the  office  he 
had  paid  for!  And  stranger  still,  Lord ,  who  discovered  this  bar- 
gain and  sale,  is  offended  at  it,  and  insists  on  the  dismission  of  this  Lord 
of  the  Treasury.  Now,  Sir,  I  must  intreat  you  to  favour  one  of  your  con- 
stituents with  the  name  of  this  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  for  you,  no  doubt, 
who  sit  at  that  Board  yourself,  must  be  acquainted  with  him. 

Jlah-Court,  July  11.  Another  Freeholder  of  Surr*y. 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Onslow  made  the  following  reply,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  same  newspaper,  July  18,  ensuing. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  July  16. 

Having  just  now  read  a  letter  containing,  by  evident  insinuation,  a 
most  audacious  attack  upon  my  character,  printed  by  you,  in  your  paper 
of  Friday  last,  asserting  a  gross  and  infamous  lie  from  beginning  to  end; 
I  do  hereby  publicly  call  upon  you  to  name  the  person  from  whom  you 
received  the  account  you  have  presumed  to  publish.  If  you  are  either  un- 
able or  unwilling  to  do  this,  I  shall  most  certainly  treat  you  as  the  author, 
and  in  justice  both  to  ni)self  and  others  who  are  every  day  thus  malig- 
nantly and  wickedly  vilified,  shall  take  the  best  advice  in  the  law  if  an  ac- 
tion will  not  lie  for  such  atrocious  defamation,  and  if  I  may  not  hope  to 
make  an  example  of  the  author  of  it. 

The  scurrility  in  general  which  has  been  of  late  so  heaped  upon  me  in 
the  public  papers,  I  have  hitherto  treated  with  the  contempt  my  friends 
and  myself  thought  it  deserved,  and  suffered  it  to  pass  with  impunity;  but 
this  last  is  so  outrageous,  and  tends  so  much  to  wound  my  character  and 
honour  in  the  tenderest  part,  that  I  am  determined,  if  practicable,  to  see 
if  a  jury  will  not  do  me  and  the  public  justice  against  such  a  libeller,  and 
whether  they  will  not  think  the  robbing  an  innocent  man  of  his  character 
is  a  robbery  of  the  most  dangerous  kind,  and  that  the  perpetrators  of  it 
will  stick  at  nothing. 

For  the  present  I  must  content  myself  with  only  laying  before  the  pub- 
lic the  two  following  letters,  which  will  explain  to  them  all  the  knowledge 
I  had  of  the  detestable  fraud,  which  has  been  taken  advantage  of  to  charge 
me  with  corruption;  a  crime,  which  of  all  others,  I  hold  the  most  in  ab- 
horrence. I  defy  the  whole  world  to  prove  a  single  word  in  your  libellous 
letter  to  be  true,  or  that  the  whole  is  not  a  barefaced,  positive,  and  entire 
lie.  That  it  is  so  I  do  assert,  and  I  call  upon  any  body,  if  they  can,  to 
disprove  what  I  sav. 

GEORGE  ONSLOW. 


*118  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

Copy  of  a  Letter  to  Mr.  Onslow,  received  the  27th  of  June. 
Sib,  New  Bond  Street,  June  25, 1769. 

I  beg-  you  will  pardon  my  thus  addressing  you,  a  liberty  I  could  not 
not  think  of,  was  any  thing  less  than  my  family's  bread  at  stake.  Some 
weeks  past  my  husband  paid  a  large  sum  of  money  (which  gave  us  inex- 
pressible sorrow  to  raise)  to  a  party,  who  protest  they  are  empowered  by 
you  to  insure  him  in  return,  the  Collectorship  of  Piscataway  in  New 
Hampshire.  I  have  been  told  this  day  one  Hughes  is  in  possession  of  the 
same,  and  the  Treasury  books  confirm  the  news.  I  beg  leave  most  ear- 
nestly to  intreat  you  will  inform  me  whether  Mr.  Hughes  is  under  any 
engagement  to  resign,  or  whether  we  are  duped  by  those  who  have  taken 
our  money. 

Mr.  Burns  has  had  the  strongest  recommendations  from  persons  of  un- 
doubted veracity,  and  I  believe,  on  all  accounts,  will  be  found  to  be  per- 
fectly capable  and  worthy  of  the  employment. 

Once  more  I  intreat,  good  Sir,  you  will  excuse  this  trouble,  which  is 
caused  by  a  heart  almost  broken  with  the  fear  and  terror  of  a  disappoint- 
ment. With  the  profoundest  respect, 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  most  obedient 

humble  Servant, 

MARY  BURNS. 

Mr.  Onslow|s  Answer. 
Madam,  Ember  Court,  June  27,  1769. 

Your  Letter  was  brought  down  to  me  hither  only  to-day,  or  I  should 
have  answered  it  sooner.  Without  having  the  honour  of  being  known  to 
vou  or  Mr.  Burns,  it  gives  me  much  concern  that  any  body  should  be  so 
imposed  upon  as  you  have  been,  and  as  much  indignation  that  my  name 
should  be  made  so  infamous  a  use  of.  I  should  have  been  under  an  equal 
degree  of  surprise,  had  I  not  this  morning  had  some  intimation  of  the 
matter  from  Mr.  Pownal  and  Mr.  Bradshaw,  and  made  some  inquiry  into 
it  of  Mr.  Watkins  at  Charing  Cross,  with  a  determination  to  sift  this 
shocking  scene  of  villany  to  the  bottom,  and  which  I  shall  now  be  encou- 
raged in  by  the  hopes  of  getting  you  your  money  restored  to  you,  as  well 
as  the  earnest  desire  I  have  to  bring  the  perpetrators  of  this  roguery  to 
the  punishment  and  shame  they  deserve. 

For  this  purpose,  might  I  beg  the  favour  of  Mr.  Burns  to  meet  me  at 
my  house  in  Curzon  Street,  about  ten  o'clock  on  Friday  morning. — I  will 
go  with  him  to  Mr.  Pownai's,  of  which  I  have  given  him  notice;  and  I 
wish  Mr.  Burns  would  bring  with  him  Mr.  Watkins,  or  any  body  else  that 
oan  give  light  into  this  unhappy  and  wicked  affair. 

Till  this  morning  I  never  in  my  life  heard  a  single  word  of  either  the 
office  itself,  nor  of  any  of  the  parties  concerned.  You  will  judge  then  of 
my  astonishment,  and  indeed  horror,  at  hearing  of  it  to-day  from  Mr 
Bradshaw. 

I  am,  Madam,  &c. 

GEORGE  ONSLOW 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *HQ 

Since  writing1  of  the  above  letters,  more  of  this  fraud  has  been  detect- 
ed, and  further  enquiry  is  making,  in  order  to  bring  the  actors  in  it  to 
justice.  A  woman  of  the  name  of  Smith,  who  lives  near  Broad  street,  is 
the  person  who  appears  to  be  principally  concerned  in  the  fraud,  the  mo- 
ney being,  it  seems,  for  her  use. 


The  writer  of  the  first  address,  now  authorizing  the  printer  to  give 
Mr.  Onslow  his  name,  (which  he  did,  and  which  was  that  of  the  Rev- 
John  Home,)  once  more  attacked  the  Right  Honourable  Gentleman  as 
follows,  in  the  same  paper,  July  28. 

TO  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE  GEORGE  ONSLOW. 
Good  Sir, 

If  with  another  innocent  man,  Lord  Holland,  you  were  ambitious  to 
add  to  the  list  of  Mr.  Walpole's  Right  Honourable  authors,  you  might, 
like  him,  have  exposed  yourself  with  more  temper,  and  have  called  names 
in  better  English. 

I  should  be  sorry  to  libel  you  by  mistaking  your  meaning,  but  the 
strange  manner  of  wording  your  first  sentence  leaves  me  at  a  loss  to 
know  whether  you  intend  that  my  letter,  or  — —  your  own  character  is 
"  a  gross  and  infamous  lie  from,  beginning  to  end" 

You  may  save  yourself  the  expense  of  taking  "  the  best  advice  in  the 
law."  Depend  upon  it  you  can  never  "  hope  to  make  an  example  of  the 
author,  ■when  the  publisher  is  unable  or  unwilling  to  give  up  his  name."  And 
you  need  not  wait  for  a  jury  to  determine,  "  that  robbing  a  man  is  certainly 
a  robbery."  But  you  should  have  considered  some  months  since  that  it  is 
the  same  thing  whether  the  man  be  guilty  or  innocent;  and  whether  he 
be  robbed  of  his  reputation  or——— — of  his  seat  in  parliament. 

In  the  Public  Advertiser  of  Friday,  July  14,  there  is  a  letter  from  you 
as  well  as  to  you.  If  that  is  the  scurrility  you  speak  of,  I  agree  with  you 
that  it  has  been  treated  with  the  contempt  it  deserves  by  all  the  world;  but 
how  you  can  say  that  it  has  passed  with  impunity,  I  own  I  cannot  conceive, 
unless  indeed  you  are  of  opinion  with  those  hardened  criminals  who  think 
that,  because  there  is  no  corporal  sufferance  in  it,  the  being  gibbeted  in 
chains  and  exposed  as  a  spectacle  makes  no  part  of  their  punishment. 

The  letter  written  by  you  to  Mr.  Wilkes  tends  more  "  to  wound  your 
character  and  honour"  than  any  other,  and  yet  you  pass  it  over  in  silence. 
But  you  shall,  if  you  please,  prove  to  the  world  that  those  who  have  nei- 
ther character  nor  honour,  may  still  be  wounded  in  a  veiy  tender  part — 
their  interest.  And  1  believe  Lord  Hillsborough  is  too  noble  to  suffer  any 
Lord  of  the  Treasury  to  prostitute  his  name  and  commission  to  bargains 
like  that  I  have  exposed;  but  will,  if  he  continues  to  preside  at  the  Board 
of  Trade,  resolutely  insist  either  on  sucli  Lord's  full  justification  or  dis- 
mission.— Hinc  illce  Ladirynue. 

You  "  defy  the  -whole  world  to  prove  a  single  word  in  my  letter  to  be  true;  or 
that  the  whole  is  not  a  barefaced,  positive,  and  entire  lie."  The  language  of 
of  the  la»t  part  of  the  sentence  is  such  as  I  can  make  no  use  oft  and  there- 
fore 


*120  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

fore  I  return  it  back  on  you  to  whom  it  belongs:  The  defiance  in  the  first 
part  I  accept,  and  will  disprove  what  you  say. 

My  letter  can  only  be  false  in  one  particular;  for  it  contains  only  one 
affirmation,  namely,  that  I  heard  the  story  I  relate  from  very  good  autho- 
rity. It  then  concludes  with  a  question  to  you  of— who  is  this  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  that  so  abhors  corruption?  Which  question  since  you  have  an- 
swered, I  too  will  gratify  you,  and  in  return  for  yours  do  hereby  direct  the 
printer  to  give  you  my  name;  which,  humble  as  it  is,  I  should  not  consent 
to  exchange  with  you  in  any  other  manner. 

Now,  Sir,  I  do  again  affirm  that  I  heard  the  story  from  the  best  autho- 
rity: And  that  it  is  not  my  invention  your  own  letter  is  a  proof,  for  I  might 
have  heard  it  either  from  Mrs.  Burns,  or  from  Mr.  Pownal,  or  Mr.  Brad- 
shaw,  but  1  heard  it  from  better  authority.  I  go  farther.  I  do  still  believe 
the  story  as  I  related  it  to  be  true;  nor  has  any  thing  you  have  said  con- 
vinced me  to  the  contrary.  I  do  not  mean  to  charge  you  or  any  one;  but 
since  you  have  condescended  to  answer  my  former  question,  be  kind 
enough  to  explain  what  follows. 

Mr.  Pownal  is  secretary  to  the  Board  of  Trade.  Mr.  Bradshaw  is  secre- 
tary to  the  Treasury.  Why  did  these  two  secretaries  come  together  to 
you?  Were  they  sent  by  their  Principals  or  not?  Who  first  detected  this 
very  scandalous  though  very  common  traffic?  Has  not  Lord  Hillsborough 
that  honour?  And  is  not  your  exaggerated  "  abhorrence  of  corruption,  your 
astonishment,  and  indeed  horror  at  this  shocking  scene  of  villany"  vastly 
heightened  by  the  calm,  and  therefore  unsuspected  disapprobatioTi  of  his 
Lordship;  who  does  not  seem  to  think  with  you  that  every  whore  should 
be  hanged  alive;  but  only  that  they  should  be  turned  out  of  honest 
company. 

How  came  you  so  instantly  to  entertain  hopes  of  getting  the  money  re- 
stored to  Mrs.  Burns?  when  you  declared,  that  "till  that  morning  you 
never  in  your  life  heard  a  single  word  of  either  the  office  itself  nor  if any  of  the 
parties  concerned"  Jonathan  Wild  used  to  return  such  answers;  because 
he  knew  the  theft  was  committed  by  some  of  his  own  gang. 

You  pretend  to  have  given  to  the  Public  "  all  the  knowledge  you  have  of 
/his  detestable  fraud."  I  cannot  bslieve  it,  because  I  find  nothing  in  your 
letter  on  which  to  found  your  hopes  of  restoring  the  money  to  Mrs.  Burns; 
and  especially  because  in  three  weeks  after  this  letter,  i.  e.  from  June  27 
to  July  18,  you  have  only  discovered  "  that  Mrs.  Smith  appears  to  he  prin- 
cipally concerned  in  this  detestable  fraud,  the  money  being,  it  seems,  for  her 
use."  Sir,  do  you  not  know  whose  wife  Mrs.  Smith  is?  And  are  you  not 
acquainted  with  that  gentleman?  Have  you  caused  Mrs.  Smith  or  anyone 
else  to  be  taken  into  custody?  Have  you  taken  "  the  best  advice  in  law,  and 
are  you  determined  to  see  if  a  jury  -will  not  do  you  and  the  public  justice"  for  this 
detestable  fraud?  Or  is  there  yet  left  one  crime  which  you  abhor  more 
than  corruption,  and  for  which  you  reserve  all  your  indignation?  But  why 
this  anger?  he  that  is  innocent  can  easily  prove  himself  to  be  so;  and 
should  be  thankful  to  those  who  give  him  the  opportunity  by  making  a 
story  public.  Malicious  and  false  slander  never  acts  in  this  open  manner; 

but 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *121 

but  seeks  the  covert,  and  cautiously  conceals  itself  from  the  party  malign- 
ed, in  order  to  prevent  a  justification.  If  any  person  have  done  your  cha- 
racter an  injury  by  a  charge  of  corruption,  they  are  most  guilty  who  so 
thoroughly  believed  you  capable  of  that  crime,  as  to  pay  a  large  sum  of 
money  on  the  supposition:  (an  indignity  VI  ich  I  protest  I  would  not  have 
offered  to  you,  though  you  had  negotiated  the  matter  and  given  the  promise 
yourself,)  and  yet  I  do  not  find  you  at  all  angry  with  them  when  they  tell 
you  their  opinion  of  you  without  scruple.  On  the  contrary,  you  pity  Mrs. 
Burns  in  the  kindest  manner,  which  shews  plainly  that  your  honour  is  not 
like  Caesar's  wife.  Nay,  you  seem  almost  to  doubt  whether  you  "  might 
beg  the  favour  of  Mr.  Burns  to  meet  you  at  your  house  in  Curzon  Street"  that 
is,  you  humbly  solicit  Mr.  Burns  to  do  you  the  favour  of  accepting  your 
assistance  in  the  recovery  of  his  money.  Archbishop  Laud  thought  to  clear. 
himself  to  posterity  from  all  aspersions  relative  to  popery,  by  inserting  in. 
his  diary  his  refusal  of  a  Cardinal's  hat;  not  perceiving  the  disgrace  inde- 
libly fixed  on  him  by  the  offer.  "  J\Ir.  Burns  has  had  the  strongest  recom- 
mendations from  persons  of  undoubted  •veracity,  and  I  believe  on  all  accounts 
■will  be  found  to  be  perfectly  capable  and  xvorthy  the  employment."  The  letter 
from  Mrs  Burns  to  you  does  by  no  means  declare  her  to  be  an  idiot- 
Colonel  — — —  (whom  you  forbear  to  mention)  is  a  man  of  sense,  and 
well  acquainted  with  the  world  It  is  strange  they  should  all  three  believe 
you  capable  of  this  crime,  which  "  of  all  ot/iers  you  most  hold  in  abhorrence" 
Mr  Pownal,  Mr.  Bradshaw,  and  their  principals,  are  supposed  to  know 
something  of  men  and  things,  and  therefore  I  conclude  they  did  not  be- 
lieve you  concerned  in  this  business:  though  I  wonder  much  that,  not 
believing  it,  both  the  secretaries  should  wait  on  you  so  seriously  about  it; 
but  peril  ps  they  may  think,  that  when  honour  and  justice  are  not  the 
rules  of  men's  actions,  there  is  nothing  incredible  that  may  be  for  their 
advantage.  But,  Sir,  whatever  may  be  their  sentiments  of  you,  I  must  in- 
treat  you  to  entertain  no  resentment  to  me,  my  opinion  of  your  character 
would  never  suffer  me  to  doubt  your  innocence.  If  indeed  the  charge  of 
corruption  had  been  brought  against  a  low  and  ignorant  debauchee,  who, 
without  the  gratifications  and  enjoyments  of  a  gentleman,  had  wasted  a 
a  noble  patrimony  amongst  the  lowest  prostitutes;  whose  necessities  had 
driven  him  to  hawk  about  a  reversion  on  the  moderate  terms  of  one  thou- 
sand for  two  hundred;  whose  desperate  situation  had  made  him  renounce 
his  principles  and  desert  his  friends,  those  principles  and  those  friends  to 
which  he  stood  indebted  for  his  chief  support;  who  for  a  paltry  considera- 
tion had  stabbed  a  dear  old  friend,  and  violated  the  sacred  rights  of 
that  grateful  country  tliat  continued  to  the  son  the  reward  of  his  father's 
services:  if  the  charge  had  been  brought  against  such  an  one,  more  fit  to 
receive  the  public  charity  than  to  be  trusted  with  the  disposal  and 
management  ofthe  public  money,  small  proof  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient; and  instead  of  considering  it  as  a  crime  the  most  to  be  abhorred, 
we  might  have  suffered  corruption  to  pass  amongst  the  virtues  of  such  a 
man.  But  yours,  Sir,  is  a  very  different  character,  r.nd  situation.  In  the 
clear  and  unincumbered  possession  ofthe  paternal  estate  with  which  your 

ancestors 

Voi.  I.  #  9 


#122  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

ancestors  have  long  been  respectable;  with  a  pension  of  three  thousand, 
and  a  place  of  one  thousand  a  year;  with  the  certain  prospect  of  Lord 
Onslow's  large  fortune,  which  your  prudence  will  not  anticipate;  grate- 
ful to  your  country,  faithful  to  your  connexions,  and  firm  to  your  princi- 
ples, it  ought  to  be  as  difficult  to  convict  you  of  corruption,  as  a  cardinal 
of  fornication;  for  which  last  purpose  by  the  canon  law,  no  less  than  se- 
venty-two eye-witnesses  are  necessary.  Thus,  Sir,  you  see  how  far  I 
am  from  casting  any  reflection  on  your  integrity:  however  if  notwfth- 
standing  all  I  have  said  you  are  still  resolved  to  try  the  determination  of 
a  jury,  take  one  piece  of  advice  from  me:  do  not  think  of  prosecuting  me 
for  an  insinuation:  alter  your  charge  before  it  comes  upon  record,  to 
prevent  its  being  done  afterwards;  for  though  Lord  Mansfield  did  not 
know  the  difference  between  the  words  when  he  substituted  the  one  for 
the  other,  we  all  know  very  well  now  that  it  is  the  tenor  and  not  the 
purport  that  must  convict  for  a  libel,  which  indeed  almost  every  stu- 
dent in  the  law  knew  before. 

Another  Freeholder  of  Surrey. 

The  names  of  Lord  Hillsborough  and  Mr.  Pownal  having  been  intro- 
duced into  the  preceding  letter,  they  thought  proper  to  deny  any  other 
knowledge  of  Mr.  Onslow's  supposed  turpitude,  than  that  proceeding 
from  common  report,  and  accordingly  inserted  the  following  letters  in  the 
Public  Advertiser  on  the  day  after  their  respective  dates.  Long  as  this 
note  is,  we  cannot,  in  justice  to  Mr.  Onslow,  here  omit  them. 

TO  H.  S.  WOODFALL, 

Printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser. 

Having  observed  in  a  newspaper  of  the  28th  of  July  last,  that  it  is  insi- 
nuated that  I  have  been  the  detector  of  a  supposed  crime,  imputed  to  the 
Ri^lit  Honourable  George  Onslow,  Esq.  I  do  think  it  an  act  of  common 
justice  to  declare,  in  this  public  manner,  that  I  am  entirely  ignorant  of 
the  s.id  supposed  crime,  and  of  all  circumstances  relative  to  it,  except 
that  I  have  heard  the  story  mentioned  in  common  conversation,  and  con- 
stantly treated  as  a  calumny  propagated  to  injure  Mr.  Onslow's  reputation. 

Hanover  Square,  HILLSBOROUGH. 

August  2,  1769. 

It  having  been  suggested  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Right  Honourable 
Gouge  Onslow,  Esq  published  in  a  newspaper  dated  the  28th  of  July 
last,  that  I  was,  together  with  Mr.  Bradshaw,  sent  to  Mr.  Onslow,  on  the 
subject  of  a  scandalous  transaction,  in  which  which  Mr.  Onslow  is,  in  the 
said  letter,  stated  to  be  concerned;  it  is  become  necessary  for  me,  in  jus- 
tice to  that  gentleman,  to  declare,  that  I  never  was  sent  to  Mr.  Onslow, 
on  that  or  any  other  occasion;  but  having  heai-d  this  story,  I  thought  it 
but  common  justice  to  communicate  it  to  Mr.  Onslow,  which  I  did  through 
the  channel  of  Mr.  Bradshaw.  J.  POWNAL. 

Whitehall,  August  2, 1"69. 

An  actio;1  for  defamation  against  Mr.  Home,  was  brought  by  Mr. 
Onslow,  agreeably  to  his  menace,  and  the  damages  were  laid  at  10,000/- 

It 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  #223 

It  was  tried  before  Mr  Justice  Rlaokstone,  at  the  Surry  Assizes  h<ld  at 
Kingston,  April  6,  1770,  and  terminated  in  Mr.  Onslow's  nonsuit,  incon- 
sequence -:f  the  word  pounds  being  inserted  in  the  record,  instead  of  the 
word  pound  The  cause  was  re-heard  before  Lord  Chief  Justice  Mans- 
field at  the  ensuing  Summer  Assizes,  held  at  Guildford,  when  Mr. 
Onslow  was  again  nonsuited.  The  trial  is  supposed  to  have  cost  Mr.  Ons- 
low upwards  of  1500/.  in  consequence  of  his  having  retained  all  the  prin- 
cipal counsel  upon  the  occasion. 


No.  6. 

Sir,  Sunday,  Aug  6, 1769. 

The  spirit  of  your  letter1  convinces  me  that  you  are  a 
much  better  writer  than  most  of  the  people  whose  works 
you  publish.  Whether  you  have  guessed  well  or  ill  must  be 
left  to  our  future  acquaintance.  For  the  matter  of  assistance, 
be  assured,  that  if  a  question  should  arise  upon  any  writings 
of  mine,  you  shall  not  want  it.  Yet  you  see  how  things  go, 
and  I  fear  my  assistance  would  not  avail  you  much.  For 
the  other  points  of  printing,  &c.  it  does  not  depend  on  us  at 
present.  My  own  works  you  shall  constantly  have,  and  in 
point  of  money,  be  assured  you  never  shall  suffer.  I  wish 
the  inclosed2  to  be  announced  to-morrow  conspicuously  for 
Tuesday.  I  am  not  capable  of  writing  any  thing  more 
finished* 

Your  friend, 

C. 

Your  Veridicus  is3  Mr.  Whitworth.  I  assure  you  I  have 
not  confided  in  him. 


No.  7. 

Sir,  Wednesday  night,  Aug.  16,  1769. 

I  have  been  some  days  in  the  country,  and  culd  not  con- 
veniently send  for  your  letter  until  this  night.   Your  correc- 

1  The  substance  of  Mr.  Woodfall's  reply  to  Private  Letter,  No.  3,  is  not 
known. 

2  Junius,  Letter  xx. 

3  Veridicus  was  a  frequent  writer  in  the  Piblic  Advertiser,  in  the  year 
1769.  and,  as  already  observed  in  the  Preliminary  Essay,  was  Richard 
Whitworth,  Esq.  M.  P.  for  Stafford. 


i.  124  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

tion  was  perfectly  right,  the  sense  required  it,  and  I  am 
much  obliged  to  you.  When  I  spoke  of  innumerable  blun- 
ders, I  meant  Newberry's  pamphlet;  for  I  must  confess  that 
upon  the  whole  your  papers  are  very  correctly  printed. 

Do  with  my  letters  exactly  what  you  please.  I  should 
think  that,  to  make  a  better  figure  than  Newberry,  some 
others  of  my  letters  may  be  added,  and  so  throw  out  a  hint, 
that  you  have  reason  to  suspect  they  are  by  the  same  author. 
If  you  adopt  this  plan,  I  shall  point  out  those  which  I  would 
recommend;  for  you  know,  I  do  not,  nor  indeed  have  I  time 
to  give  equal  care  to  them  all. 

I  know  Mr.  O.islow  perfectly.  He  is  a  false  silly  fellow. 
Depend  upon  it  he  will  get  nothing  but  shame  by  contend- 
ing with  Home1. 

I  believe  I  need  not  assure  you,  that  I  have  never  written 
in  any  other  paper  since  I  began  with  yours.  As  to  Junius, 
I  must  wait  for  fresh  matter,  as  this  is  a  character  which 
must  be  kept  up  with  credit.  Avoid  prosecutions  if  you  can: 
but,  above  all  things,  avoid  the  Houses  of  Parliament, — 
there  is  no  contending  with  them.  At  present  you  are  safeT 
for  this  House  of  Commons  has  lost  all  dignity,  and  dare 
Hot  do  any  thing. 

Adieu, 

C. 


No.  8. 

(Private) 
Sir,  Sept.  10, 1769. 

The  last  letter  you  printed  was  idle  and  improper,  and  1 
assure  you  printed  against  my  own  opinion2.  The  truth  is, 
there  are  people  about  me,  whom  I  would  wish  not  to  con- 
tradict, and  who  had  rather  see  Junius  in  the  papers  ever  so 
improperly  than  not  at  all.  I  wish  it  could  be  recalled.  Sup- 
pose vou  were  to  say — We  have  some  reason  to  suspect  that 
the  last  letter  signed  Junius  in  this  paper,  zvas  not  written 
by  the  real  Junius,  though  the  observation  escaped  us  at  the 

1  This  contest  is  already  related  in  the  note  to  Private  Letters,  No.  5. 
3  It  occurs  in  the  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No   nx.  In  the  genuine  edi- 
tion it  was  omitted  for  the  reason  winch  the  author  has  here  specified. 


/       * 


.  0//    -  //////V/v/  sy  //tr  .///;/"   //////  //y  f> 

Jibuti       /■<    fLuA    //    Ac     'it   /lAcfo'l-    ''<"      ^ptJkA    ef-.    H  O^. 
A,,/   Cmu     (r*n     // >   >/*'., 7 '/    ,  /£*    f&AA?    U     is     )kA-&^ 

Hu  {*  <^y    (ft*  u+iM  hf)  (,<  f,  jjULo  «-y  >*  /'^  ^r 

>#A   '„.     //,      >  ,/,w  ,   A  -.Hi  *f.<t     iLl    tfy.    or   {J'^    ;  or 

,<„<</,,  Ay      f,fjf         jl  ,  „   I  J       <t\.rl      ]\^o>',      kjb ,    VL^MJJ    J 

<>»   /   fl>   >     //>  if  It  t  {       /(n/nm.         (7/V      .-J  ,  //    or      „a«  Ua  -"  '/  ,  (P' 

/ '  n>  a  i  }  J      h  e  h  <  *        t •  t        \  f  >.    *  I L      i  n  r   ■   '  <  O  i<  kI 

/ 1  i   t^{   H*f     '/<><;        ('<•    '  Oil         //<       JJ  '     '        v  '    -         ,  '  a    IK       Ju  1   <   J  J     CA  ft 

IJ    '  •  •  • 

A.  (  <«,        l)'\nl<((  "?(■   C/(         h</^llt'tr<  ■      (/(tu       /*  *  '/     JCttJ      fcrrn+Trv* 

h     Ik  C      /lu»l  L      k    (  l\  (  (         f\'t  i '  h  C,<    ',    ft.  t  t  Ajuc     'AjT^U.L     J   i~M-J]<r»  A*A^ 


,/////,->  / // 


k 


* '/ 


<y        hj-T~v4-~l*S\        rt^^y      /A^-^y        rtrxjt/      >><-<JAjJ         j  / 


(I  tn 


,u! 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *125 

time:  or,  if  you  can  hit  off  any  thing  yourself  more  plausible, 
you  will  much  oblige  me,  but  without  a  positive  assertion. 
Don't  let  it  be  the  same  day  with  the  enclosed.  Begging 
your  pardon  for  this  trouble,  I  remain  your  friend  and  hum- 
ble servant, 

C. 


No.  9. 

(Private) 
Sir,  Friday  night,  Sept.  15, 1769. 

I  beg  you  will  to-morrow  advertise  Junius  to  another 

Duke  in  our  next1.  If  Monday's  paper  be  engaged,  then  let 

it  be  for  Tuesday,  but  not  advertised  till  Monday.  You  shall 

have  it  some  time  to-morrow  night.  It  cannot  be  corrected 

and  copied  sooner.  I  mean  to  make  it  worth  printing. 

Yours, 

C. 


No.  10. 

Thursday  night,  Oct.  5,  1769. 
I  shall  be  glad  to  see  the  pacquet  you  speak  of2.  It  can- 
not c>>me  from  the  Cavendishes,  though  there  be  no  end  of 
the  family.  They  would  not  be  so  silly  as  to  put  their  arms 
I  on  the  cover.  As  to  me,  be  assured  that  it  is  not  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  that  they,  or  you,  or  any  body  else  should 
ever  know  me,  unless  I  make  myself  known.  All  arts  or 
enquiries,  or  rewards  would  be  equally  ineffectual. 

As  to  yoU)  it  is  clearly  my  opinion,  that  you  have  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  I  reserve  some  things 
expressly  to  awe  him,  in  case  he  should  think  of  bringing 
you  before  the  House  of  Lords. — I  am  sure  I  can  threaten 
him  privately  with  such  a  storm,  as  would  make  him  trem- 
ble even  in  his  grave.  You  may  send  to-morrow  to  the  same 

1  This  note  accompanied  the  letter  to  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
Junius,  No.  xxiii.  and  was  announced  agreeably  to  the  above  request  in 
the  Public  Advertiser  for  September  18,  1769. 

3  The  nature  of  this  communication  is  not  known. 


*126  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

plat  e  without  farther  notice;  and  if  you  have  any  thing  of 
your  own  to  communicate,  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  it. 

C. 


No.  11. 

Sir,  Nov.  8,  1769. 

I  have  been  out  of  town  for  three  weeks,  and,  though  I 
got  your  last,  could  not  conveniently  answer  it.  Be  so  good 
as  to  signify  to  A.  B.  C,  either  by  word  of  mouth,  or  in 
your  own  hand,  "  that  his  papers  are  received,  and  that  I 
should  have  been  ready  to  do  him  the  service  he  desires; 
but  at  present  it  would  be  quite  useless  to  the  parties,  and 
might  offend  some  persons  who  must  not  be  offended."  As 
to  Mr.  Mortimer1,  only  make  him  some  civil  excuse. 

I  should  be  much  obliged  to  you,  if  you  would  reprint 
(and  in  the  front  page,  if  not  improper  or  inconvenient)  a 
letter  in  the  London  Evening  Post  of  last  night,  to  the  Duke 
of  Grafton2.  If  it  had  not  been  anticipated,  I  should  have 
touched  upon  the  subject  myself.  However,  it  is  not  ill  done, 
and  it  is  very  material  that  it  should  spread.  The  person  al- 
luded to  is  Lord  Denbigh.  I  should  think  you  might  venture 
him  with  a  D.  As  it  stands  few  people  can  guess  who  is 
meant.  The  only  thing  that  hinders  my  pushing  the  subject 
of  my  last  letter,  is  really  the  fear  of  ruining  that  poor  devil 
Gansel,  and  those  other  blockheads. —  But  as  soon  as  a  good 
subject  offers. — Your  types  really  wanted  mending. 


No.  12. 

Sir,  Nov.  12, 1769. 

I  return  you  the  letters  you  sent  me  yesterday.  A  man 

who  can  neither  write  common  English,  nor  spell,  is  hardly 

worth  attending  to.  It  is  probably  a  trap  for  me.  I  should 

be  glad,  however,  to  know  what  the  fool  means.  If  he  writes 

1  M".  Mortimer  was  either  at  this  time,  or  shortly  afterwards,  employed 
by  Mr   Woodfall  to  procure  intelligence  for  the  Public  Advertiser. 
3  See  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  lxi. 


TO  Mr.  H  S.  WOODFALL.     .  #127 

again,  open  his  letter,  and  if  it  contains  any  thing  worth  my 
knowing,  send  it:  otherwise  not.  Instead  of  C.  in  the  usual 
place,  say  only  A  Letter  when  you  have  occasion  to  write 
to  me  again. — I  shall  understand  you. 


No.   13. 

Thursday,  Nov.  16,  1769. 

As  I  do  not  chuse  to  answer  for  any  body's  sins  but  my 
own,  I  must  desire  you  to  say  to-morrow,  "  We  can  assure 
the  Public  that  the  letter,  signed  A.  B.  relative  to  the  Duke 
of  Rutland,  is  not  written  by  the  author  of  Junius1." 

I  sometimes  change  my  signature,  but  could  have  no  rea- 
son to  change  the  paper,  especially  for  one  that  does  not  cir- 
culate half  so  much  as  yours.  C. 

For  the  future,  open  all  letters  to  me,  and  don't  send 
them,  unless  of  importance. — I  can  give  you  light  about 
Veridicus2. 


No.  14 

Sunday,  Dec.  10, 1769. 
I  would  wish  the  paper  (No.  2.)  might  be  advertised  for 
Tuesday3. 

Bv  way  of  intelligence  you  may  inform  the  Public  that 
Mr.  De  la  Fontaine,  for  his  secret  services  in  the  Alley^  is 
appointed  Barrack-master  to  the  Savoy. 
I  hope  A.  B.  C.  has  got  his  papers  again. 


No.  15. 
Sir,  December  12, 1769. 

You  may  tell  Mr.  A.  B.  C.  that  I  did  not  receive  his 
letter  till  last  night,  and  have  not  had  time  to  look  into  the 

1  See  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  lxi.  and  note  *  appended  to  it. 

2  See  note  to  Private  Letters,  No.  6. 

3  The  paper  here  referred  to  is  the  Letter  of  Junius,  No.  xxxiv.  The 
ensuing  intelligence  was  published  verbally  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of 
Ac  next  day,  Dec- 11. 


¥128  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

paper  annexed.  I  cannot  at  present  understand  what  use  I 
can  make  of  it.  It  certainly  shall  not  be  an  ungenerous  one 
to  him.  If  he  or  his  counsel  knoxv  hoxv  to  act<  I  have  saved 
him  already,  and  r>  ally  without  intending  it. — The  facts  are 
all  literally  true.  Mr.  Hine's  place  is  Customer  at  the  port 
of  Exeter.  Colonel  Burgoyne  received  4000/.  for  it.  T© 
mend  the  matter,  the  money  was  raised  by  contribution,  and 
the  subscribers  quartered  upon  Mr.  Hine.  Among  the  rest, 
one  Doctor  Brook,  a  physician  at  Exeter,  has  100/.  a  year 
out  of  the  salary.  I  think  you  might  give  these  particulars 
in  your  own  way  to  the  public1.  As  to  yourself,  I  am  con- 
vinced the  ministry  will  not  venture  to  attack  you,  they  dare 
not  submit  to  such  an  enquiry.  If  they  do,  shew  no  fear,  but 
tell  them  plainly  you  will  justify,  and  subpoena  Mr.  Hine, 
Burgoyne,  and  Bradshaw  of  the  Treasury — that  will  silence 
them  at  once. — As  to  the  House  of  Commons  there  may 
be  more  danger.  But  even  there  I  am  fully  satisfied  the 
ministry  will  exert  themselves  to  quash  such  an  inquiry,  and 
on  the  other  side,  you  will  have  friends: — but  they  have 
been  so  grossly  abused  on  all  sides,  that  they  will  hardly 
begin  with  you. 

Tell  A.  B.  C.  his  paper  shall  be  returned.  I  am  now  me- 
ditating a  capital,  and  I  hope  a  final  piece;— you  shall  hear 
of  it  shortly2. 


No.  16. 

Dec.  19,  1769. 
For  material  affection,  for  God's  sake  read  maternal;  it 
is  in  the  sixth  paragraph3.  The  rest  is  excellently  done. 

1  The  facts  were  given  to  the  public  by  Junius  himself,  in  Letter  xxxiv. 
Vol.  1.  p.  187,  and  are  indeed  touched  upon  more  than  once  in  his  subse- 
quent Utters 

2  He  refers  to  the  Letter  to  the  Kine.  Junius,  No.  xxxv. 

3  Letter  to  the  King,  Jim  us,  No.  xxxv. 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  #129 


No.  17. 

Sik,  Dec.  26,  1769. 

With  the  inclosed  alterations  I  should  think  our  paper 
might  appear1.  As  to  embowelling,  do  whatever  you  think 
proper,  provided  you  leave  it  intelligible  to  vulgar  capaci- 
ties; but  would  not  it  be  the  shortest  way  at  once  to  print  it, 
in  an  anonymous  pamphlet?  judge  for  yourself.  I  enter  seri- 
ously into  the  anxiety  of  your  situation,  at  the  same  time  I 
am  strongly  inclined  to  think  that  you  will  not  be  railed 
upon2.  Thty  cannot  do  it  without  subjecting  Hine's  affair 
to  an  inquiry,  which  would  be  worse  than  death  to  the 
minister.  As  it  is,  they  are  more  seriously  stabbed  with  this 
last  stroke  than  all  the  rest. — At  any  rate,  stand  firm — (I 
mean  with  all  the  humble  appearances  of  contrition) — if  you 
trim  or  faulter,  you  will  lose  friends  without  gaining  others. 
A.  B.  C.  has  done  right  in  publishing  his  letter,  it  defends 
him  more  effectually  than  all  his  nonsense. — I  believe  I  shall 
give  him  a  lift,  for  I  really  think  he  has  been  punished  infi- 
nitely bejond  his  merits. — I  doubt  much  whether  I  shall 
ever  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  you;  but  if  things  take 
the  turn  I  expect,  you  shall  know  me  by  my  -works* 

C. 


No.  18. 

(Private) 
Sir,  Jan.  12, 1770. 

I  desired  A.  B.  C.  not  to  write  to  me  until  I  gave  him 
notice,  he  must  therefore  blame  himself,  if  the  detention  of 
his  papers  has  been  inconvenient  to  him.  Pray  tell  him  this, 

1  This  paper  is  supposed  to  have  been  totally  suppressed,  the  altera- 
tions introduced  into  it,  not  having1  perhaps  satisfied  the  Printer  of  his 
safety  in  publishing  it,  as  the  signal  of  a  private  communication  from  him 
to  the  author  appeared  in  the  P.  A.  of  the  next  day. 

2  The  Printer  was  threatened  by  the  Minister  with  a  prosecution  for 
publishing  the  letter  of  Junius,  No.  xxxm.  and  the  court  of  King's 
Bench  was  actually  moved  on  his  behalf;  but  probably  for  the  reason  men> 
fcioned  above,  the  threat  was  never  executed. 

Vol.  I.  #  R 


*130  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

and  that  he  shall  have  them  in  a  day  or  two.  I  shall  also 
keep  my  promise  to  him1,  but  to  do  it  immediately  would 
be  useless  to  him,  and  unadviseable  with  respect  to  myself. 
I  believe  you  may  banish  your  fears.  The  information2  will 
only  be  for  a  misdemeanour,  and  I  am  advised  that  no  jury, 
especially  in  these  times,  will  find  it.  I  suspect  the  channel, 
through  which  you  have  your  intelligence.  It  will  be  car- 
ried on  coldly-  You  must  not  write  to  me  again,  but  be 
assured  I  will  never  desert  you.  I  received  your  letters  re- 
gularly, but  it  was  impossible  to  answer  them  sooner.  You 
shall  hear  from  me  again  shortly. 


No.  19. 
(Private) 
S  mi,  Beginning  of  Feb.  1770. 

When  you  consider  to  what  excessive  enmities  I  may  be 
exposed,  you  will  not  wonder  at  my  caution.  I  really  have 
not  known  how  to  procure  your  last.  If  it  be  not  of  any 
great  moment  I  would  wish  you  to  recall  it.  If  it  be  give 
me  a  hint.  If  your  affair  should  come  to  a  trial3,  and  you 
should  be  found  guilty,  you  will  then  let  me  know  what  ex- 
pense falls  particularly  on  yourself;  for  I  understand  you 
are  engaged  with  other  proprietors.  Some  way  or  other  you 
shall  be  reimbursed.  But  seriously  and  bona  Jide,  I  think  it 
is  impossible. 

C. 

1  See  Junius,  No.  xxxiii.  and  xxxvi.  for  an  explanation  of  the  fact 
and  papers  here  referred  to. 

2  The  information  was  for  publishing  the  Letter  to  the  King,  Junius, 
No.  xxxv.  for  the  particulars  of  which  see  the  author's  Preface,  post  p.  10. 

3  The  trial  referred  to  is  stated  more  fully  in  another  part  of  this  publi- 
cation, and  alludes  to  an  information  filed  by  the  Attorney-General,  incon- 
sequence of  the  printer's  having  published  the  letter  of  Junius  to  the 
King,  No.  xxxv.  The  copy  of  the  information  was  procured  in  Hilary 
term,  1770,  and  the  trial  took  place  at  Guildhall,  June  13th  following.  The 
costs  to  the  printer  in  defending  himself,  though  ultimately  successful, 
amounted  to  about  120/.  a  somewhat  heavy  fine  for  a  person  not  found 
guilty. 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *1S1 

No.  20. 

About  Feb.  14,  1770. 
I  have  carefully  perused  the  information1.  It  is  so  loose 
and  ill-drawn,  that  I  am  persuaded  Mr.  De  Grey  could  not 
have  had  a  hand  in  it.  Their  inserting  the  whole,  proves 
they  had  no  strong  passages  to  fix  on.  I  still  think  it  will  not 
be  tried.  If  it  should,  it  is  not  possible  for  a  jury  to  find  you 
guilty. 

No.  21. 

Saturday,  March  17,  1770. 
To-morrow  before  twelve  you  shall  have  a  Junius,  it  will 
be   absolutely   necessary   that  it  should   be   published    on 
Monday. 

Would  it  be  possible  to  give  notice  of  it  to-night  or  to- 
morrow, by  dispersing  a  few  hand-bills?  Pray  do  whatever 
you  think  will  answer  this  purpose  best,  for  now  is  the 
crisis2. 

C. 


No.  22. 

Sunday,  March  18,  1770. 
This  letter  is  written  wide,  and  I  suppose  will  not  fill 
two  columns.  For  God's  sake   let  it   appear  to-morrow.   I 
hope  you  received  my  note  of  yesterday. 

Lord  Chatham  is  determined  to  go  to  the  Hall  to  sup- 
port the  Westminster  remonstrance3.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
we  shall  conquer  them  at  last. 

C. 

1  The  Information  here  referred  to,  is  that  noticed  in  the  note  to  the 
preceding  letter. 

2  The  letter  referred  to,  is  printed  Junius,  No-  xxxvii. 

3  Agreed  upon  at  a  general  meeting  of  the  electors  of  the  city  and  liber- 
ty of  Westminster,  assembled  in  Westminster  Hall,  March  28,  1770,  in 
consequence  of  their  petition  to  his  Majesty,  requesting  him  to  dissolve 
the  Parliament  which  had  expelled  Mr.  Wilkes,  having  been  rejected. 
The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  remonstrance: — 

"The 


*132  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

"  The  humble  address,  remonstrance,  and  petition  of  the  electors  of  the 
city  and  liberty  of  Westminster,  assembled  in  Westminster  Hall  the 
28th  day  of  March,  1770. 

"  We,  y  our  Majesty's  most  dutiful  and  loyal  subjects,  the  electors  of  the 
city  and  liberty  of  Westminster,  having1  already  presented  our  humble, 
but  ineffectual,  application  to  the  throne,  find  ourselves,  by  the  misconduct 
of  your  Majesty's  ministers,  in  confederacy  with  many  of  our  representa- 
tives, reduced  to  the  necessity  of  again  breaking  in  by  our  complaints 
upon  your  Majesty's  repose,  or  of  acquiescing  under  grievances  so  new 
and  so  exorbitant,  that  none  but  those  who  patiently  submit  to  them, 
can  deserve  to  suffer  them. 

"  By  the  same  secret  and  unhappy  influence  to  which  all  our  grievances 
have  been  originally  owing,  the  redress  of  those  grievances  has  been  now 
prevented;  and  the  grievances  themselves  have  been  repeatedly  confirm- 
ed; with  this  additional  circumstance  of  aggravation,  that  while  the  inva- 
ders of  our  rights  remain  the  directors  of  your  Majesty's  councils,  the 
defenders  of  those  rights  have  been  dismissed  from  your  Majesty's  ser- 
vice— your  Majesty  having  been  advised  by  your  ministers  to  remove  from 
his  employment  for  his  vote  in  Parliament,  the  highest  officer  of  the  law; 
because  his  principles  suited  ill  with  theirs,  and  his  pure  distribution  of 
justice  with  their  corrupt  administration  of  it  in  the  Huse  of  Commons. 

"  We  beg  leave,  therefore,  again  to  represent  to  your  Majesty,  that  the 
House  of  Commons  have  struck  at  the  most  vduable  liberties  and  franchises 
of  all  Lie  electors  of  Great  Britain;  and  by  assuming  to  themselves  aright 
of  chusing,  instead  of  receiving  a  member  when  chosen,  by  transferring 
to  the  representative  what  belonged  to  the  constituent,  they  have  taken 
off  from  the  dignity,  and,  we  fear,  impaired  the  authority  of  Parliament 
itself. 

"  We  presume  again  therefore  humbly  to  implore  from  your  Majesty, 
the  only  remedies  which  are  any  way  proportioned  to  the  nature  of  the 
evil:  that  you  would  be  graciously  pleased  to  dismiss  for  ever  from  yoijr 
councils,  those  ministers  who  are  ill-suited  by  their  dispositions  to  pre- 
serve the  principles  of  a  free,  or  by  their  capacities  to  direct  the  councils 
of  a  great  and  mighty  kingdom;  and  that  by  speedily-  dissolving  the  pre- 
sent Parliament,  your  Majesty  will  shew,  by  your  own  example,  and  by 
their  dissolution,  that  the  rights  of  your  people  are  to  be  inviolable,  and 
that  you  will  never  necessitate  so  manyr  injured,  and  by  such  treatment 
exasperated  subjects  to  continue  to  commit  the  care  of  their  interests  to 
those  from  whom  they  must  withdraw  their  confidence;  to  repose  their 
invaluable  privileges  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  sacrificed  them;  and 
their  trust  in  those  who  have  betrayed  it. 

"  Your  subjects  look  up  with  satisfaction  to  the  powers  which  the  con- 
stitution has  vested  in  your  Majesty — for  it  is  upon  them  that  they  have 
placed  their  last  dependance,  and  they  trust,  that  the  right  of  dissolving 
parliaments,  which  has,  under  former  princes,  so  often  answered  the 
purposes  of  power,  may  under  your  Majesty  prove  an  happy  instrument  of 
liberty. 

"  We 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *133 


No.  23. 

(Private) 

Friday  Morn.  Oct.  19,  1770. 

By  your  affected  silence1,  you  encourage  an   idle  opinion 

that  I  am  the  author  of  the  Whig2,  &c.  though  you  very  well 

kn  -v,  the  contrary.  I  neither  admire  the  writer  nor  his  idol. 

I  hope  you  will  soon  set  this  matter  right. 

C. 

"  We  find  ourselves  compelled  ,to  urge  with  the  greater  importunity, 
this  our  humble  but  earnest  application  to  the  throne,  as  every  day  seems 
to  produce  the  confirmation  of  some  old,  or  to  threaten  the  introduction 
of  some  new  injury. — We  liave  the  strongest  reason  to  apprehend  that,  the 
usurpation  begun  by  the  House  of  Commons  upon  the  right  of  electing, 
may  be  extended  to  the  right  of  petitioning;  and  that  under  the  pretence 
of  restraining  the  abuse  of  this  right,  it  is  meant  to  bring  into  disrepute, 
and  to  intimidate  us  from  the  exercise  of  the  right  itself. 

"  But  whatever  may  be  the  purposes  of  others,  your  Majesty  hath  in 
your  answer  to  the  city  of  London,  most  graciously  declared,  that  you  are 
always  ready  t<.  receive  the  requests,  and  to  listen  to  the  complaints  of  your  sxtb- 
jects.  Your  Majesty  condescends  likewise  to  esteem  it  a  duty  to  secure  to 
them  the  free  enjoyment  of  those  rights  "which  your  family  were  called  to  defend- 

"  We  rely,  therefort-,  upon  the  Royal  word  thus  given,  that  our  grie- 
vances will  meet  with  full  redress,  and  our  complaints  with  the  most 
favourable  interpretation — that  your  Majesty  will  never  consider  the  ar- 
raignment of  your  ministers  as  a  disrespect  to  your  person,  a  charge  con- 
fined, by  the  very  terms  of  it,  to  this  House  of  Commons,  as  injurious  to 
Parliament  at  large  (the  constitution  of  which  we  admire,  and  the  abuse 
of  which  is  the  very  thing  we  lament);  or  a  request  ibr  the  dissolution  of 
Parliament,  which  your  subjects  have  a  right  to  make,  and  your  Majesty 
to  grant,  as  irreconcileable  to  the  principles  of  the  constitution." 

1  "  The  Printer  really  did  not  affect  a  silence  on  a  certain  occa- 
sion, with  a  view  of  encouraging  his  readers  or  correspondents  in  an  idle 
opinion:  the  motives  for  his  conduct  were,  the  fear  of  being  thought  im- 
pertinent by  declaring  (without  direction)  what  he  knew;  and  the  proba- 
bility of  rendering  himself  liable  to  incur  the  displeasure  of  either  of  those 
•who  were  pleased  to  favour  him  with  their  correspondence." — Answer  to 
Correspondents,  Oct.  25,  1770. 

2  This  letter  was  printed  in  the  Public  Advertiser  under  the  signature 
of  a  Whig  and  an  Englishman,  Oct.  11,  1770,  and  refers  chiefly  to  the 
American  Stamp  Act,  and  the  opinion  of  Lord  Chatham,  whom  the  author 
panegyrized  in  very  warm  terms.  The  same  writer  had  already  published 
several  other  letters  in  the  same  name:  and  the  Printer,  in  compliance  with 
the  request  of  Junius,  gave  the  following  notice: — 

"  Octtba 


*134  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 


No.  24. 

Sir,  Monday  Evening,  Nov.  12,  1770. 

The  enclosed1  though  begun  within  these  few  days,  has 
been  greatly  laboured.  It  is  very  correctly  copied,  and  I  beg 
you  will  take  care  that  it  be  literally  printed  as  it  stands.  I 
don't  think  you  run  the  least  risque.  We  have  got  the  rascal 
down,  let  us  strangle  him  if  it  be  possible.  This  paper  should 
properly  have  appeared  to-morrow,  but  I  could  not  compass 
it,  so  let  it  be  announced  to-morrow,  and  printed  Wednes- 
day. If  you  should  have  any  fears,  I  entreat  you  send  it 
early  enough  to  Miller,  to  appear  to-morrow  night  in  the 
London  Evening  Post.  In  that  case,  you  will  oblige  me  by 
informing  the  Public  to-morrow,  in  your  own  paper,  that  a 
real  Junius  will  appear  at  night  in  the  London. — Miller,  I 
am  sure,  will  have  no  scruples. 

Lord  Mansfield  has  thrown  ministry  into  confusion,  by 
suddenly  resigning  the  office  of  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Lords. 


No.  25. 

Wednesday  Night,  Nov.  21,  17702. 
I  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  from  your  friend  at  Guild- 
hall.—  You  may,  if  you  think  proper,  give  my  compliments 
to  him,  and  tell  him,  if  it  be  possible,  I  will  make  use  of 
any  materials  he  will  give  me.  I  will  never  rest  till  I  have 
destroyed  or  expelled  that  wretch. — I  wish  you  joy  of  yester- 
day.— The  fellow  truckles  already3.  C. 

"  October  20. 
"  The  Printer  thinks  it  his  duty  to  declare,  that  the  Letters  which  have 
appeared  in  this  paper  under  the  signature  of  A  Whig  and  an  Englishman, 
were  not  written  by  the  author  of  those  signed  Junius. 

1  Letter  xli.  Junius  to  the  Right  Hon.  Lord  Mansfield 

2  On  the  outside  of  this  note  was  written,  "  the  enclosed  strikes  deeper 
than  you  may  imagine.  C."  The  Letter  here  referred  to,  is  printed  in  the 
Miscellaneous  Collection,  No.  lxxviii.  and  is  subscribed  Testiculus. 

3  In  allusion  to  the  unanimous  judgment  of  the  Court  of  Kind's  Bench, 
on  the  verdict  for  printing  the  Letter  to  the  King,  given  Nov.  20th,  1770; 
by  which  Lord  Mansfield  lost  his  object,  and  the  Printer  was  granted  a 
new  Trial. 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *135 


No.  26. 

Friday,  1  o'clock,  Dec.  7,  1770. 
I  wish  it  were  possible  for  you  to  print  the  enclosed  to- 
morrow1, observe  the  Italics  strictly  where  they  are  marked. 
Why  don't  I  hear  from  Guildhall.— If  he  trifles  with  me, 
he  shall  hear  of  it2.  C. 


No.  27. 

Sib,  January  2,  1771. 

I  have  received  your  mysterious  epistle,  I  dare  say  a  let- 
ter may  safely  be  left  at  the  same  place;  but  you  may  change 
the  direction  to  Mr.  John  Fretley.  You  need  not  advertise  it. 

Yours, 

C. 


No.  28. 

Jan.  16, 1771. 
You  may  assure  the  Public  that  a  squadron  of  four  ships 
of  the  line  is  ordered  to  be  got  ready  with  all  possible  expedi- 
tion for  the  East  Indies.  It  is  to  be  commanded  by  Commo- 
dore Spry.  Without  regarding  the  language  of  ignorant  or 
interested  people,  depend  upon  the  assurance  /  give  you, 
that  every  man  in  administration  looks  upon  war  as  inevi- 
table3. 

1  The  paper  here  referred  to,  is  Miscellaneous  Letter,  No.  lxxix.  sign- 
ed Donation,  and  was  printed  as  requested. 

2  The  allusion  is  to  a  communication  between  the  writer  and  Mr.  Wilkes, 
■which  had  been  promised  by  the  latter,  but  had  not  been  at  this  time  re- 
ceived. 

3  Inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  January  17,  nearly  in  the  same 
words.  The  predicted  war,  however,  did  not  follow,  but  the  preparation 
was  actually  made  in  the  full  belief,  on  the  part  of  the  cabinet  themselves, 
that  they  would  be  compelled  to  go  to  war,  by  the  existing  temper  of  the 
people,  irritated  by  the  dishonourable  negotiation  concerning  the  Spanish, 
seizure  of  Falkland  Islands,  and  that  they  should  be  accused  of  indolence, 
and  even  cowardice,  by  the  approaching  Parliament.  The  session  opened 
enly  four  days  afterwards,  and  the  question  of  hostilities  was  so  much 
upon  a  balance,  that  in  the  lower  House  not  fewer  than  159  members  di- 
vided  against  the  Minister,  upon  the  address  of  thanks  and  approbation. 


*136     PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 
No.  29. 

Thursday,  Jan.  31, 1771. 

The  paper  is  extremely  well  printed,  and  has  a  great  ef- 
fect1; it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  public  cause  that 
the  doors  of  the  House  of  Lords  should  be  opened  on  Tues- 
day next,  perhaps  the  following  may  help  to  shame  them 
into  it. 

We  hear  that  the  ministry  intend  to  move  for  opening 
the  doors  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament  on  Tuesday  next, 
in  the  usual  manner,  being  desirous  that  the  nation  should 
be  exactly  informed  of  their  whole  conduct  in  the  business 
of  Falkland  Island. 

(Next  Day.) 

The  nation  expect,  that  on  Tuesday  next  at  least,  both 
Houses  will  be  open  as  usual,  otherwise  there  will  be  too 
much  reason  to  suspect,  that  the  proceedings  of  the  ministry 
have  been  such  as  will  not  bear  a  public  discussion. 

We  hear  that  the  ministry  intend  to  move,  that  no  gen- 
tleman may  be  refused  admittance  into  either  House  on 
Tuesday  next.  Lord  North  in  particular  thinks  it  touches 
his  character,  to  have  no  part  of  his  conduct  concealed  from 
the  nation. 

The  resolution  of  the  ministry  to  move  for  opening  both 
Houses  on  Tuesday  next  does  them  great  honour.  If  they 
were  to  do  otherwise,  it  would  raise  and  justify  suspicions 
very  disadvantageous  to  their  own  reputation,  and  to  the 
King's  honour. 

Pray  keep  it  up.  C. 


No.  30. 

Sir,  Tuesday  Noon,  Feb.  5,  1771. 

I  did  not  receive  your  letter  until  this  day.  I  shall  be 
very  glad  to  hear  what  you  have  to  communicate. 

C. 
You  need  not  advertise  any  notice. 

1  It  refers  to  Junius,  No.  xlii.  For  the  nature  of  the  subject  alluded 
to,  see  the  Letter,  and  the  Notes  subjoined  to  it;  as  also  Miscellaneous 
Letters,  No.  lxxxviii.  and  the  note  in  explanation. 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFAIX.  *137 

No.  31. 

(Private) 

Monday,  Feb.  11,  1771. 

Our  correspondence  is  attended  with  difficulties,  yet  I 

should  be  glad  to  see  the  paper  you  mention;  let  it  be  left 

to-morrow  without  farther  notice.  I  am  seriously  of  opinion 

that  it  will  all  end  in  smoke1.  C. 


No.  32. 

Monday,  Feb.  18, 1771. 
If  you  are  not  grown  too  ministerial  in  your  politics,  I 
shall  hope  to  see  the  enclosed  announced  to-morrow  and 
published  on  Wednesday2. 


No.  33. 

Sir,  Feb.  21,  1771. 

It  will  be  very  difficult,  if  not  impracticable,  for  me  to 
get  your  note.  I  presume  it  relates  to  Vindex3.  I  leave  it  to 

1  In  reference  to  a  notice  from  tbe  Attorney-General  for  publishing 
Letter  of  Junius,  No.  lxii.  but  which  was  never  farther  proceeded 
upon. 

2  This  note  accompanied  No.  xc.  of  the  Miscellaneous  Letters.  The 
Printer  had  some  scruples  about  publishing1  the  whole  of  it;  and  in  the 
Public  Advertiser  of  Feb.  20,  gave  the  usual  mark,  "  A  Letter,"  that  a 
private  letter  was  in  waiting  upon  this  subject.  In  consequence  of  which 
the  subsequent  note  was  received,  dated  Feb.  21 

3  The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  letter  which  Mr.  Woodfall  addressed 
to  the  author  under  the  feigned  name  of  Mr  John  Fretley,  and  directed 
it  to  him  at  the  New  Exchange  Coffee-house,  in  the  Strand. 

"Sir, 
"To  have  deserved  any  portion  of  your  good  opinion,  affords  me  n» 
3mall  degree  of  satisfaction — to  preserve  it  shall  be  my  constant  endeavour. 
Always  willing  to  oblige  you  as  much  as  lies  in  my  power,  I,  with  great 
avidity,  open  your  letters;  and  sometimes,  without  reading  the  contents, 
promise  the  publication. — Such  is  my  present  situation,  and  I  hope  you 
will  not  be  offended  at  my  declining  to  publish  your  Letter,  as  I  am  con- 
rinced  the  subject  of  it  must,  if  I  was  to  insert  it,  render  me  liable  to  very 

severe 
Vol.  I.  *iy 


#138  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

you  to  alter  or  omit  as  you  think  proper; — or  burn  it.— I 
think  the  argument  about  Gibraltar1,  &c.  is  too  good  to  be 
lost;  as  to  the  satirical  part,  I  must  tell  you,  (and  with  posi- 
tive certainty,)  that  our  gracious  — —  is  as  callous  as  stockfish 
to  every  thing  but  the  reproach  of  cowardice.  That  alone  is 
able  to  set  the  humours  afloat.  After  a  paper  of  that  kind 
he  won't  eat  meat  for  a  week2. 

You  may  rely  upon  it,  the  ministry  are  sick  of  prosecu- 
tions. Those  against  Junius  cost  the  Treasury  above  six 
thousand  pounds,  and  after  all  they  got  nothing  but  disgrace. 
After  the  paper  you  have  printed  to-day,  (signed  Brutus3) 

severe  reprehension.  That  I  am  not  grown  too  ministerial  in  my  politics, 
every  day's  paper  will,  I  hope,  sufficiently  evince;  though  I  rather  hope 
some  little  regard  to  prudence  will  not  by  you  be  deemed  squeamishness, 
or  tend  to  lessen  me  in  your  opinion,  as  I  shall  ever  think  myself  your 

"Much  obliged  humble  servant, 
Feb.  19,  1771.  "Henry  Sampson  Woodfall. 

"P.  S.  I  shall  wait  your  directions  what  to  do  with  the  paper  in  ques- 
tion, as  I  did  not  chuse  to  trust  it  under  cover  till  I  was  further  acquaint- 
ed with  your  pleasure." 

1  For  the  explanation  of  this  passage,  see  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No 
xc.  signed  Vindex. 

2  See  p.  233  of  this  Vol.  note. 

3  This  Letter  was  addressed  to  Lord  North,  and  as  it  is  short,  it  is  here 
transcribed,  in  proof  that  Junius  was  not  severe  in  his  opinion  of  it,  nor 
singularly  acrimonious  in  the  phraseology  originally  adopted  by  himself. 

TO  THE  RIGHT  HON.  LORD   NORTH. 
My  Lord, 

I  never  address  your  Lordship  but  I  feel  the  utmost  horror  and  indig- 
nation; for  I  consider  you  as  a  man  totally  regardless  of  your  own  honour, 
and  the  welfare  of  your  country.  . 

The  severity  of  a  writer  cannot  be  supposed  to  give  your  Lordship  any 
uneasiness;  a  minister,  whose  schemes  extend  only  to  the  exigencies  of  a 
year,  but  little  regards  his  present  or  future  reputation;  yet  it  is  a  duty  we 
owe  to  the  public  to  trace  out  and  expose  the  villain  wherever  we  can 
perceive  him  working  up  the  ruin  of  his  country. 

The  choice  of  your  friends  is  an  eminent  indication  of  your  abilities  and 
the  blackness  of  your  heart. 

Nam  quicumq;  zmpudicus,  adulter,  ganeo,  aJea,  maim,  ventre,  bona  patria 
laceravit,  r/uique  aticnum  ees  grande  con/hivit,  immediately  flies  into  your 
arms,  and  reimburses  himself  with  the  plunder  of  his  country. 

Such'are  the  guardians  of  our  liberties  and  law:  such  are  the  men  to 
whom  our  constitution  is  entrusted:  and  cannot  we  then,  without  any  par- 
ticular 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *13$ 

one  would  think  you  feared  nothing.  For  my  own  part  I  can 
very  truly  assure  you  that  nothing  would  afflict  me  more 
than  to  have  drawn  you  into  a  personal  danger,  because  it 
admits  of  no  recompence.  A  little  expense  is  not  to  be 
regarded,  and  I  hope  these  papers  have  reimbursed  you.  I 
never  will  send  you  any  thing  that  /  think  dangerous,  but 
the  risque1  is  yours,  and  you  must  determine  for  yourself. 

C. 
All  the  above  is  private. 

ticular  discernment,  or  any  remarkable  acuteness  of  observation,  tract 
«ut  the  origin  of  our  present  discontents? 

It  would  be  needless  to  follow  you  through  that  maze  of  villany,  in  which 
you  have  long  delighted  to  wander;  I  shall  only  attack  those  measures 
which  occur  to  our  more  immediate  consideration. 

In  what  manner  can  you  answer  to  your  King  for  the  scandalous  prosti- 
tution of  his  crown  and  himself? 

In  what  manner  can  you  answer  to  your  country  for  the  total  disregard 
of  its  welfare  and  dignity? 

After  all  these  formidable  preparations;  after  all  this  expensive  arma- 
ment, you  have  made  shift  to  patch  up  a  temporary  ignominious  com- 
promise, at  the  trifling  expense  of  about  three  millions,  and  the  British 
honour. 

You  imagine  yourself  sufficiently  secured  in  the  pursuit  of  your  infa- 
mous intentions,  and  in  the  practice  of  every  illegal  and  unconstitutional 
measure,  by  the  countenance  of  the  King.  Rely  not  too  much  on  that  pro- 
tection. His  Majesty  must  not  be  suffered,  through  a  blind  and  ridiculous 
attachment  to  an  individual,  or  through  a  filial  obedience,  which  then  be- 
comes criminal,  to  ruin  and  subvert  his  infatuated  kingdoms. 

Your  late  acquisition  of  Lord  Suffolk  will  not  do  you  much  honour:  he 
is  of  the  same  stamp  with  the  rest  of  your  adherents.  His  Lordship  has 
given  the  world  a  very  strong  impression  of  his  character,  and  the  dispo- 
sition of  his  heart,  by  deserting  his  principal,  and  the  cause  in  which  he 
originally  embarked,  and  by  betraying  that  friendship,  which  in  the  more 
early  and  virtuous  time  of  his  life  he  had  contracted.  His  former  party 
need  not  regret  the  loss  of  him,  for  they  are  by  his  desertion  disencum- 
bered of  a . 

But  I  will  now  leave  you,  my  Lord,  to  that  mature  insensibility  whicK 
is  only  to  be  acquired  by  a  steady  perseverance  in  infamy. 

Every  principle  of  conscience  you  have  long  ago  been  hardy  enough  t» 
discard.  There  has  not  been  an  action  in  the  last  two  years  of  your  life  but 
what  separately  deserves  imprisonment.  The  time  may  come;  and  re- 
member, my  Lord,  there  is  a  very  short  period  between  a  minister's 
imprisonment  and  his  grave.  Brutus. 

1  This  peculiarity  is  the  author's. 


f  140  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

No.  34. 

Friday  noon,  April  19, 1771. 
I  hope  you  will  approve  of  announcing  the  inclosed  Ju- 
nius 'o-morrow1,  and  publishing  it  on  Monday.  If,  for  any 
reasons  that  do  not  occur  to  me,  you  should  think  it  unad- 
viseable  to  print  it  as  it  stands,  I  must  entreat  the  favour 
of  you  to  transmit  it  to  Bingley,  and  satisfy  him  that  it  is  a 
real  Junius,  worth  a  North  Briton  Extraordinary.  It  will 
be  impossible  for  me  to  have  an  opportunity  of  altering  any 
part  of  it. 

I  am,  very  truly,  your  friend, 

C. 


No.  35. 

Thursday,  June  20,  1771. 
I  am  strangely  partial  to  the  enclosed2.  It  is  finished  with 
the  utmost  care.  If  I  find  myself  mistaken  in  my  judgment 
of  this  paper,  I  positively  will  never  write  again. 

C. 
Let  it  be  announced  to-morrow,  Junius  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  for  Saturday. 

I  think  Wilkes  has  closed  well.  I  hope  he  will  keep  his 
resolution  not  to  write  any  more3. 

1  Junius,  Letter  xliv.  which  was  printed  as  requested. 

2  Junius,  No.  xlix.  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton. 

3  In  allusion  to  th<j  dispute  between  Mr.  Wilkes  and  Mr.  Home,  con- 
ducted with  great  acrimony,  till  the  former  resolved,  as  here  advised,  not 
to  answer  after  a  definite  period  any  additional  letters,  in  consequence  of 
the  total  occupation  of  his  time  in  his  canvass  for  the  office  of  Sheriff  of 
London,  for  which  he  was  then  a  candidate,  and  to  which  situation  he  ulti- 
mately succeeded.  The  following  is  the  conclusion  of  the  letter  here  spoken 
of,  which  was,  of  course,  addressed  to  Mr.  Home. 

"  Whether  you  proceed,  Sir,  to  a  thirteenth,  or  a  thirtieth  letter,  is  to  me 
a  matter  of  the  most  entire  indifference.  You  will  no  longer  have  me  your 
correspondent.  All  the  efforts  of  your  malice  and  rancour  cannot  give  me 
a  moment's  disquietude.  They  will  only  torment  your  own  breast.  I  am 
who)l>  indifferent  about  your  sentiments  of  me,  happy  in  the  favourable 
opinion  f  many  i  aluable  friends,  in  the  most  honourable  connections,  both 
public  and  private,  and  in  the  prospect  of  rendering  myself  eminently  use- 
ful 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *H1 

No.  36. 

July  16,  1771. 
To  prevent  any  unfair  use  being  made  of  the  enclosed,  I 
intreat  you  to  keep  a  copy  of  it.  Then  seal  and  deliver  it  to 
Mr.  Home.  I  presume  you  know  where  he  is  to  be  found1. 

C. 


No.  37. 

August  13,  1771. 
Pray  make   an   erratum  for  ultimate  in  the  paragraph 
about  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  it  should  be  intimate,  the  rest 
is  very  correct2.  If  Mr.  Home  answers  this  letter  handsome- 
ly and  in  point,  he  shall  be  my  great  Apollo. 


No.  38. 

Wednesday  Noon,  Sept.  25,  1771. 

The  enclosed  is  of  such  importance,  so  very  material, 
that  it  must  be  given  to  the  public  immediately3. 

I  will  not  advise; — though  I  think  you  perfectly  safe: — 
all  I  say  is  that  /  rely  upon  your  care  to  have  it  printed 
either  to-morrow  in  your  own  paper,  or  to-night  in  the 
Pacquet. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  get  yours  from  that  place,  but 
you  shall  hear  from  me  soon. 

ful  to  my  country.  Formerly  in  exile,  when  I  was  urbe  patriague  extorris,     ^ 
and  torn  from  every  sacred  tie  of  friendship,  I  have  moistened  my  bread 
with  my  tears.  The  rest  of  my  life  I  hope  to  enjoy  my  morsel  at  home  in 
peace  and  cheerfulness,  among  those  I  love  and  honour,  far  from  the 
malignant  eye  of  the  false  friend,  and  the  insidious  hypocrite. 

"  I  am,  Sir, 

"  Your  humble  servant, 

John  Wilkes." 

1  Note  inclosing  Junius's  Letter  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Home,  No.  lii. 

2  Junius,  LetterLiv.  This  letter  appeared  on  the  13th  of  August,  1771, 
though  in  the  author's  edition  it  is  by  mistake  dated  the  15th. 

3  The  Letter  referred  to  is  Junius,  No.  lvii.  and  was  printed  in  the 
P.  A.  Saturday,  Sept.  28th,  1771. 


*142  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 


No.  39. 

About  Nov.  5,  1771. 

Your  reasons  are  very  just  about  printing  the  Preface,  &c. 
It  is  your  own  affair.  Do  what  ever  you  think  proper.  I  am 
convinced  that  the  book  will  sell,  and  I  suppose  will  make 
two  volumes, — the  type  might  be  one  size  larger  than  Whe- 
ble's.  But  of  all  this  you  are  the  best  judge.  I  think  you 
should  give  money  to  the  waiters  at  that  place  to  make  them 
more  attentive1.   The  notes  should  be  in  smaller  type. 

Pray  find  out,  if  you  can,  upon  what  day  the  late  Duke  of 
Bedford  was  flogged  on  the  course  at  Litchfield  by  Mr.  Hes- 
ton  Homphrey2. 


No.  40. 

Friday,  Nor.  8,  1771. 
The  above  to  that  Scotchman  should  be  printed  conspicu- 
ously to-morrow3.  At  last  I  have  concluded  my  great  work, 
and  I  assure  you  with  no  small  labour.  I  would  have  you  be- 
gin to  advertise  immediately,  and  publish  before  the  meeting 
of  parliament;  let  all  my  papers  in  defence  of  Junius  be  in- 
serted.4 I  shall  now  supply  you  very  fast  with  copy  and 
notes.  The  paper  and  type  should  at  least  be  as  good  as 
WhebleV.  You  must  correct  the  press  yourself,  but  I  should 
be  glad  to  see  corrected  proofs  of  the  two  first  sheets.  Shew 
the  Dedication  and  Preface  to  Mr.  Wilkes,  and  if  he  has  any 
material  objection,  let  me  know.  I  say  material  because  f 
the  difficulty  of  getting  your  letter.  C. 

(Secret.) 
Beware  of  David  Garrick6,  he  was  sent  to  pump  you,  and 

1  A  coffee-house  at  which  letters,  Stc.  were  left  for  Junius. 

2  See  Junius,  Letter  xxiii. 

3  See  Letters  of  Junius,  No.  lxvx. 

*  The  Letters  signed  PhUo-Junius:  those  numbered  lxiii.  and  lxiv. 
and  the  extracts  from  the  letters  to  the  Supporters  of  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

5  The   present   respectable   proprietor  and  publisher   of  the    Count) 
Chronicle. 

6  Garrick  had  received  a  letter  from  Woodfall  just  before  the  above  note 
of  Junius  was  sent  to  the  Printer,  in  which  Garrick  was  told,  in  confi- 
dence, 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *H3 

went  directly  to  Richmond  <o  iell  the  King  I  should  write 
no  more.  The  Dedication  must  stand  first. 


No.  41. 

TO  MR.  DAVID  GARRICK. 

Nov.  10,  1771. 
I  am  very  exactly  informed  of  your  impertinent  inquiries, 
and  of  the  information  you  so  busily  sent  to  Richmond,  and 
with  what  triumph  and  exultation  it  was  received.  I  knew 
every  particular  of  it  the  next  day. — Now  mark  me,  vaga- 
bond.— Keep  to  your  pantomimes,  or  be  assured  you  shall 
hear  of  it.  Meddle  no  more,  thou  busy  informer! — It  is  in 
my  power  to  make  you  curse  the  hour  in  which  you  dared  to 
interfere  with 

JUNIUS*. 

dence,  that  there  were  some  doubts  whether  Juxius  would  continue  to 
write  much  longer.  Garrickflew  with  the  intelligence  to  Mr.  Ramus,  one 
of  the  pages  to  the  King,  who  immediately  conveyed  it  to  his  Majesty,  at 
that  time  residing  at  Richmond,  and  from  the  peculiar  sources  of  informa- 
tion that  were  open  to  this  extraordinary  writer,  Junius  was  apprized  of 
the  whole  transaction  en  the  ensuing  morning,  and  wrote  the  above  post- 
script, and  the  letter  that  follows  it,  in  consequence. 

1  Mr.  Garrick  had,  before  this  period,  been  threatened  for  his  supposed 
political  bias  to  the  Court,  as  will  appear  from  a  charge  which  Mr.  Home 
brought  forward  against  Mr.  Wilkes,  during  the  personal  altercation 
which  took  place  between  them  in  the  months  of  May  and  June  preceding 
the  date  of  this  letter,  and  which  is  more  particularly  noticed  in  the  note 
to  Junius,  Letter  No.  tn.  Mr.  Home's  accusation  is  as  follows:  — 

"  Whilst  Mr.  Wilkes  was  in  the  King's  Bench,  he  sent  a  threatening 
message  to  Mr.  Gat  rick  to  forbid  his  playing  the  part  of  Hastings  in  the 
tragedy  of  Jane  Shore,-  on  account  of  some  lines  in  that  play  which  Mr. 
Wilkes  thought  applicable  to  his  own  situation.  Mr.  Garrick  complained 
exceedingly  of  the  cruelty  of  such  an  interdict,  and  wished  to  be  permitted 
to  proceed  in  his  endeavours  to  please  the  public  in  the  common  course  of 
his  profession.  The  patriot  wTas  inexorable;  and  Mr.  Garrick  has  not 
appeared  in  that  character  since.  The  Lord  Chamberlain' s  control  by  Act 
of  Parliament  over  the  pleasures  of  the  public  is  exercised  only  over  new- 
plays." 

To  this  charge  Mr.  Wilkes  replied  as  follows,  offering  several  justly 
merited  compliments  to  the  hitherto  unrivalled  genius  of  Mr.  Garrick. 

«TO 


#144  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

I  would  send  the  above  to  Garrick  directly,  but  that  I 
would  avoid  having  this  hand  too  commonly  seen.  Oblige 
me,  then,  so  much  as  to  have  it  copied  in  anv  hand,  and 
sent  by  the  penny  post,  that  is  if  you  dislike  sending  it 
in  your  own  writing. — I  must  be  more  cautious  than  ever. 
I  am  sure  I  should  not  survive  a  discovery  three  daysj 

"  TO  THE  REV.  MR.  HORNE. 
"  Sir,  Prince's  Court,  Thursday,  June  6,  1771. 

"  Your  ninth  Letter  has  relieved  me  not  a  little  by  taking  me  to 
the  theatre,  and  recalling  to  my  delighted  remembrance  the  amazing 
powers  both  of  nature  and  art  in  the  most  wonderful  genius  that  ever 
trod  the  English,  or  perhaps  any  stage,  for  his  rival,  Roscius,  had  a  great 
defect,  erat  perversissimis  oculig.   You  say  'whilst  Mr  Wilkes  was  in  the 
King's  Bench,'  &c.  The  whole  of  this  pompous  tale  is,  that  some  warm 
friends  of  Mr.  Wilkes  imagined  that   Mr.   Garrick  acted  the   part   of 
Hastings  at  that  time  in  a  manner  very  different  from  what  he  had  usually 
done,  and  marked  too  strongly  some  particular  passages,  unfavourable  to 
the  generous  principles,   and  to  the  friends,  of  freedom.  They  talked  of 
expressing  their  disapprobation  in  the  theatre,  at  the  next  representation 
of  Jane  Shore,  and  likewise  in  the  public  prints.  Mr.  Wilkes  therefore 
thought  it  prudent  to  state  the  case  by  two  or  three  gentlemen  to  Mr. 
Garrick  himself,  and'said,  he  feared  the  part  of  Hastings  might  bring  on 
manv  disagreeable  consequences  to  the  great  actor  himself  as  well  as  to 
Mr.  Wilkes  and  his  connections,  if  continued  in  the  manner  then   stated. 
Mr.  Garrick  received  the  friendly  admonition  in  the  most  friendly  way, 
but  declared  that  the  gentlemen,  who  had   given  Mr.  Wilkes  the  account 
of  his  acting  Hastings,  had  greatly  mistaken,  that  he  had  not  made  the 
least  alteration  in  the  usual  manner  of  acting  that  part  on  account  of  the 
political  disputes  of  the  times,  but  been  solely  guided  by  his  own  feelings: 
that  he  always  had  acted  that  part,  and  always  should  play  it  in  the  same 
manner,  not  however  slavishly  copying  himself,  but  with  all  the  variety 
which  from  time  to  time  his  genius  might  dictate,  preserving  still  the 
cast  and  spirit  of  the  original  character.  Nothing  more  passed  on  this 
stibject  between  Mr.  Garrick  and  me,  nor  has  that  gentleman  ever  ex- 
pressed the  slightest  displeasure  against  Mr.  Wilkes,  or  his  friends;  so  far 
has  he  been  from  complaining  exceedingly  of  the  cruelty  of  an  interdict,  which 
never  existed. 

"  Did  it  escape  your  memory,  Sir,  that  one  of  the  objections  made  at 
that  time  by  my  friends,  was  the  peculiar  emphasis  Mr  Garrick  was  said 
to  give  to  the  following  lines  of  Hastings,  which  some  thought  applicable  t» 
i  our  situation: — 

111  befall 
Such  meddling  Priests,  who  kindle  up  confusion, 
And  vex  the  quiet  world  with  their,  vain  scruple*; 
By  heaven  'tis  done  in  perfect  spight  to  peace. 

"  You 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOO DF  ALL.  ^145 

or,  if  I  did,  thcv  would  attaint  me  by  bill.  Change  to  the 
Somerset  Coffee-house,  and  let  no  mortal  know  the  altera- 
tion. I  am  persuaded  you  are  too  honest  a  man  to  contribute 
in  any  way  to  my  destruction.  Act  honourably  by  me,  and 
at  a  proper  time  you  shall  know  me. 

I  think  the  second  page,  with  the  widest  lines,  looks  best. 
What  is  your  essential  reason  for  the  change1?  I  send  \ou 
some  more  sheets. — I  think  the  paper  is  not  so  good  as 
Wheble*s, — but  I  may  be  mistaken — the  tvpe  is  good.  The 
aspersions  thrown  upon  my  letter  to  the  Bill  of  Rights" 
should  be  refuted  by  publication. 

Prevail  upon  Mr.  Wilkes  to  let  you  have  extracts  of  my 
second  and  third  letters  to  him.    It  will  make  the  book  still 

"You  say,  '  I  think  with  half  his  (Mr.  Garrick's)  merit  I  should  have 
had  twice  his  courage.'  If  you  mean  theatrical  merit,  I  can  tell  you  of 
some  parts,  in  which  you  would  infinitely  exceed  our  great  English  actor* 
1  mean  all  those  parts  from  which — fugiunt  Pudor,  Verumque,  Fidesqae.  In 
quoiiim  subeunt  Locum  Fraudes,  Dolique,  Insidi<zque,  &c  fc3*c  Ton  would  ad, 
and  be  Iago  with  success.  Mr.  Garrick  has  that  in  ldm,  which  must  ever 
prevent  his  acting  well  in  that  character.  You  have  that  in  you,  which 
would  make  it  easy  and  natural.  Shy  lock  too  our  Roscius  must  never 
attempt.  The  Christian  Priest  of  Brentford  has  no  vain  scruples  to  prevent 
his  undertaking  and  being  applauded  in  that  part.  He  might  then  talk  of 
dying  his  black  coat  red  with  blood  in  an  innocent  way  on  the  stage,  which  at 
Brentford  inspired  a  savage  horror. 

"  The  pleasing  hours,  which  Mr.  Garrick  gave  me  at  the  King's  Bench. 
I  have  deducted  from  the  injury  of  a  long  and  cruel  imprisonment,  and  I 
think  of  him  as  Cicero  did  of  the  great  Roman  actor,  cum  artifex  ejusmodi 
sit,  ut  solus  dignus  videatur  esse,  qui  in  scena  spectetur:  turn  vir  ejusmodi  est, 
ut  solus  dignus  videatur,  qui  eo  non  accedat. 

"  I  am,  &c. 

"  John  Wilkes." 

1  In  allusion  to  a  specimen  of  the  intended  genuine  edition  of  the 
Letters. 

2  In  the  correspondence  which  took  place  between  Mr.  Wilkes  and 
Junius,  two  of  his  letters  related  to  the  Bill  of  Rights  Society,  and  were 
written  in  disapprobation  of  several  of  their  measures.  These  letters  were, 
in  many  respects,  misrepresented  to  the  public,  and  in  his  own  opinion, 
purposely  so  by  Mr.  Home.  The  explanatory  extracts  here  referred  to, 
were  re-published  at  the  close  of  the  second  volume  of  the  genuine  edi- 
tion, and  will  be  found  in  Vol.  II.  p.  149  The  letters  are  given  at  length 
in  the  private  correspondence  of  Junius  and  Mr.  Wilkes. 

Vol.  I.  *  T 


*146         PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

more  new.  I  would  see  them  before  they  are  printed,  but 
keep  this  last  to  yourself1. 


No.  42. 

Nov.  11,  1771. 
Print  the  following  as  soon  as  you  think  proper,  and  at 
the  head  of  your  paper2. 

I  sent  you  three  sheets  of  copy  last  night. 
When  you  send  to  me,  instead  of  the  usual  signal,  say, 
Vindex  shall  be  considered,  and  keep  the  alteration  a  secret  to 
every  body. 

No.  43. 

About  Nov.  15,  1771. 

If  you  can  find  the  date  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  flogging, 
insert  it  in  the  note3.  I  think  it  was  soon  after  the  West- 
minster election.— The  Philos  are  not  to  be  placed  as  notes, 
except  where  I  mention  it  particularly.  I  have  no  doubt  of 
what  you  say  about  David  Garrick — so  drop  the  note.  The 
truth  is,  that  in  order  to  curry  favour,  he  made  himself 
a  greater  rascal  than  he  was.  Depend  upon  what  I  tell 
you; — the  King  understood  that  he  had  found  out  the 
secret  by  his  own  cunning  and  activity.-— As  it  is  important 
to  deter  him  from  meddling,  I  desire  you  will  tell  him  that 
I  am  aware  of  his  practices,  and  will  certainly  be  revenged, 
if  he  does  not  desist.  An  appeal  to  the  public  from  Junius 
would  destroy  him. 

Let  me  know  whether  Mr.  Wilkes  will  give  you  the 
extracts4. 

I  cannot  proceed  without  answers  to  those  seven  queries. 

Think  no  more  of  Junius  Americanus5.— Let  him  reprint 

1  On  the  outside  of  this  letter  was  written  "private  and  particular." 

2  Certain  paragraphs  relating  to  the  marriage  of  the  late  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  inserted  in  the  Preliminary  Essay,  p.  *23. 

3  See  note  to  Letter  xxiii.  of  Junius,  post,  p.  149. 

4  Referred  to  in  No.  41. 

5  Junius  Americanus  was  a  frequent  writer  in  the  Public  Advertiser 
during  the  years  1769, 1770,  and  1771.  His  letters  chiefly  related,  as  his 

signature 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  #147 

his  letters  himself.  He  acts  most  dishonourably,  in  suffering 
Junius  to  be  so  traduced;  but  this  falsehood  will  all  revert 
upon  Home.  In  the  mean  time,  I  laugh  at  him. 

With  submission  I  think  it  is  not  your  interest  to  declare 
that  I  have  done. 

As  to  yourself,  I  really  think  you  are  in  no  danger.  You 
are  not  the  object,  and  punishing  you  (unless  it  answered  the 
purpose  of  stopping  the  press)  would  be  no  gratification  to 
the  King.  If  undesignedlv  I  should  send  you  any  thing  you 
may  think  dangerous,  judge  for  yourself,  or  take  any  opinion, 
you  think  proper.  You  cannot  offend  or  afflict  me  but  by 
hazarding  your  own  safety.  They  talk  of  farther  informa- 
tions, but  they  will  always  hold  that  language  in  terrorem. 

Don't  always  use  the  same  signal — any  absurd  Latin  verse 
will  answer  the  purpose1. 

Let  me  know  about  what  time  you  may  want  more  copy. 

Upon  reflection,  I  think  it  absolutely  necessary  to  send 
that  note  to  D.  G2.  only  say  practices  instead  of  impertinent 
inquiries.  I  think  you  have  no  measures  to  keep  with  a  man 
who  could  betray  a  confidential  letter,  for  so  base  a  purpose 

Tell  me  how  long  it  may  be  before  you  want  more  copy. — 
I  want  rest  most  severely,  and  am  going  to  find  it  in  the 
country  for  a  few  days.  Cumbriensis3  has  taken  greatly. 

signature  readily  suggests,  to  the  disputes  of  the  cabinet  with  the  Ame- 
rican colonies;  and,  in  the  course  of  his  strictures,  he  attributed  to  Ju  nius 
doctrines,  in  relation  to  their  dependence  on  the  legislature  of  Great 
Britain,  which  he  had  never  avowed,  nor  even  inclined  to.  At  this  time 
there  was  some  idea  of  publishing  them  collectively.  They  were  written 
by  a  Dr.  Charles  Lee,  as  may  be  seen  by  a  reference  to  the  private  cor- 
respondence of  Junius  and  Mr.  Wilkes. 

1  See  Preliminary  Essay,  page  *26. 

2  David  Garrick.  See  No.  41. 

3  See.  Miscell.  Letters,  No.  en.  Vol.  II.  p.  445.  it  was  printed  in  the 
Public  Advertiser,  Nov.  13th,  1771,  upon  the  marriage  of  the  late  Duke 
of  Cumberland  with  Mrs.  Horton,  the  sister  of  Col.  Luttrell. 


*148  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 


No.  44. 

Nov.  17,  1771. 
The  postcript  to  Titus  must  be  omitted1. — I  did  never 
question  your  understanding.  Far  otherwise.  The  Latin  word 
simplex  conveys  to  me  an  amiable  character,  and  never  de- 
notes folly.  Though  we  may  not  be  deficient  in  point  of 
capacity,  it  is  very  possible  that  neither  of  us  may  be  cun- 
ning enough  for  Mr.  Garrick.  But  with  a  sound  heart,  be 
assured  you  are  better  gifted,  even  for  worldly  happiness, 
than  if  you  had  been  cursed  with  the  abilities  of  a  Mansfield. 
After  long  experience  of  the  world,  I  affirm  before  God,  I 
never  knew  a  rogue  who  was  not  unhappy. 

Your  account  of  my  letter  to  the  Bill  of  Rights  astonishes 
me.  I  always  thought  the  misrepresentation  had  been  the 
work  of  Mr.  Home2.  I  will  not  trust  myself  with  suspect- 
ing. The  remedy  is  on  my  own  hands,  but,  for  Mr.  Wilkes's 
honour,  1  wish  it  to  come  freely  and  honourably  from  him- 
self. Publish  nothing  of  mine  until  I  have  seen  it.  In  the 
mean  time  be  assured,  that  nothing  can  be  more  express, 
than  my  declaration  against  long  parliaments. — Try  Mr. 
Wilkes  once  more — speak  for  me  in  a  most  friendly  but 
Jirm  tone, — that  I  will  not  submit  to  be  any  longer  aspers- 
ed— Between  ourselves  let  me  recommend  it  to  you  to  be 
much  upon  your  guard  with  patriots. — I  fear  your  friend 
Jerry  Dyson  will  lose  his  Irish  pension3.  Say  received. 

1  His  postcript  addressed  to  Titus  was  added  to  his  letter  to  Sir  Wm. 
Draper,  of  Feb.  18,  1769.  It  engaged  to  give  Titus  a  severe  castigation, 
for  having  written  with  some  degree  of  acrimony  on  the  same  side  as  the 
ICnight  of  the  Bath.  The  engagement,  however,  was  not  fulfilled  under  his 
signature  of  Junius,  and  hence  the  propriety  of  omitting  the  postcript  in 
question  in  his  own  edition  See  farther  on  this  subject,  note  to  Junius, 
Letter  iv  post,  p.  53.  in-which  Titus's  letter  is  inserted. 

2  He  here  admits  that  he  was  mistaken  in  the  conjecture  that  Home 
liad  misrepresented  the  sentiments  conveyed  in  his  Letters  to  the  Bill  of 
Rights  Society.  Yet  as  he  published  the  same  opinion  in  his  own  edition, 
ovhich  is  re-printed  in  Vol.  II.  p.  149.  he  must  afterwards  have  had  fresh 
grounds  for  re-accrediting  it,  while  in  the  present  letter  he  seems  more 
VTiun  half  to  suspect  Wilkes  himself. 

3  He  feared  with  reason.  Jeremiah  Dyson,  Esq.  was  one  of  the  lords  of 

the 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *149 

In  page  25,  it  should  be  the  instead  of  your1,  this  is  a 
woeful  mistake; — pray  take  care  for  the  future — keep  a  page 
for  errata. 

David  Garrick  has  literally  forced  me  to  break  my  resolu- 
tion of  writing  no  more2. 


No.  45. 

Dec.  5, 1771. 
These  papers  are  all  in  their  exact  order.  Take  great 
care  to  keep  them  so.  In  a  few  days  more  I  shall  have  sent 
you  all  the  copy.  You  must  then  take  care  of  it  yourself, 
except  that  I  must  see  proof  sheets  of  the  Dedication  and 
Preface,  and  these,  if  at  all,  I  must  see  before  the  end  of 
next  week.  You  shall  have  the  extract  to  go  into  the  second 
volume,  it  will  be  a  short  one.  Scaevola,  I  see,  is  determined 
to  make  me  an  enemy  to  Lord  Camden3.  If  it  be  not  wilful 
malice,  I  beg  you  will  signify  to  him,  that  when  I  originally 
mentioned  Lord  Camden's  declaration  about  the  Corn  Bill, 
it  was  without  any  view  of  discussing  that  doctrine,  and 
only  as  as  an  instance  of  a  singular  opinion  maintained  by  a 
man  of  great  learning  and  integrity.  Such  an  instance  was 
necessary  to  the  plan  of  my  letter.  I  think  he  has  in  effect  in- 
jured the  man  whom  he  meant  to  defend. 

the  admiralty,  and  in  Feb.  1770,  resigned  his  seat  in  favour  of  our  late 
lamented  foreign  minister  Mr.  Fox,  upon  an  Irish  pension  of  1500/.  per 
annum  for  his  own  life,  and  that  of  his  three  sons.  The  following  is  an  ac- 
count of  the  mode  in  which  he  lost  it: 

"  In  a  committe  of  supply  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  Ireland,  Nov. 
25,  1771,  after  a  long  debate  the  question  was  put,  and,  on  a  division,  it 
was  carried  against  the  pension,  by  a  majority  of  one,  the  numbers  being 
for  it  105,  against  it  106;  on  which  the  House  immediately  resolved, 
'That the  pension  granted  to  Jeremiah  Dyson,  Esq.  and  his  three  sons,  is 
an  unnecessary  charge  upon  the  establishment  of  Ireland,  and  ought  not 
to  be  provided  for.'  Ordered,  '  That  the  said  pension  be  struck  off  the  list 
of  pensioners  upon  the  .  .tublishment  of  Ireland." 

1  In  the  opening  of  the  Letter  of  Junius,  No.  in.  it  was  originally 
printed  in  the  genuine  edition,  "  Your  defence,"  Sic.  In  the  present  edi- 
tion the  correction  has  been  duly  adopted 

2  The  letter  alluded  to  is  Junius,  No.  lxvii. 

3  For  further  particulars  of  this  dispute,  see  Letters  of  Junius,  No.  lx. 


*150  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

When  you  send  the  above-mentioned  proof  sheets,  return 
my  own  copy  with  them. 


•      No..  46. 

Dec.  10, 1771. 

The  inclosed  completes  all  the  materials  that  I  can  give 
you.  I  have  done  my  part.  Take  care  you  do  yours.  There 
are  still  two  letters  wanting,  which  I  expect  you  will  not  fail 
to  insert  in  their  places.  One  is  from  Philo-Junius  to 
Scsevola  about  Lord  Camden,  the  other  to  a  friend  of  the 
people  about  pressing1.  They  must  be  in  the  course  of  Octo- 
ber.— I  have  no  view  but  to  serve  you,  and  consequently 
have  only  to  desire  that  the  Dedication  and  Preface  may  be 
correct.  Look  to  it.  If  you  take  it  upon  yourself,  I  will  not 
forgive  your  suffering  it  to  be  spoiled.  I  weigh  every  word; 
and  every  alteration,  in  my  eyes  at  least,  is  a  blemish. 

I  should  not  trouble  you  or  myself  about  that  blockhead 
Scaevola,  but  that  his  absurd  fiction  of  my  being  Lord  Cam- 
den's enemy  has  done  harm. — Every  fool  can  do  mischief; 
therefore  signify  to  him  what  I  said. 

Garnck  has  certainly  betray>  d  himself,  probably  #  *  * 
#  #  ■*•  *  #  *  #?  vvho  makes  it  a  rule  to  betray  every  body  that 
tonfides  in  him.  That  new  disgrace  of  Mansfield  is  true2: 

1  These  two  letters  are  numbered  Philo-Juniits,  lx.  and  lxii. 

2  The  allusion  is  to  a  cause  which  was  tried  at  the  Summer  Assizes 
for  the  county  of  Surrey,  in  1771,  Means  and  Shepley  against  Ansell,  for 
a  trespass,  in  winch  his  Lordship  was  supposed  to  have  given  a  Very 
partial  charge  in  favour  of  the  Defendant,  who  hereby  obtained  a  verdict. 
The  Plaintiffs,  however,  on  the  Michaelmas  Term  following,  moved  the 
Court  of  Common  Pleas  for  a  new  trial,  on  the  ground  of  the  misdirection 
•f  the  judge.  The  judge  was  called  upon  fur  his  report,  which  he  could 
not  make  without  sending  to  th  Plaintiff's  attorney  for  his  affidavit  of 
the  transaction. — He  made  his  report  at  last,  to  which  he  subjoined  that 
he  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  verdict  of  the  jury. — The  Court  of 
Common  Pleas  was  clearly  of  opinion,  that  Lord  Mansfield  had  acted 
eontiary  to  every  principle  of  evidence  botli  in  law  and  equity,  in  admit- 
ting Matthews  and  Hi  .cox  to  give  parol  evidence,  contrary  to  a  clear  ex- 
plicit agreement  in  writing,  which  they  had  attested — and  asserted  that, 
if  sucli  a  practice  was  t<>  obtain,  it  would  g<»  a  great  way  towards  sub- 
verting the  Statute  of  Frauds  and  Perjuries,  and  would  be  a  m  >st 

dangerous 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  #151 

what  do  you  mean  by  affirming  that  the  Dowager  is  better? 
I  tell  you  that  she  suckles  toads  from  morning  till  night1.  I 
think  I  have  now  done  my  duty  to  you,  so  farewell. 


No.  47. 

Dec.  17, 1770. 
Make  your  mind  easy  about  me,  I  believe  you  are  an 
honest  man,  and  I  never  am  angry2. — Say  to-morrow  "  We 
are  desired  to  inform  Scaevola,  that  his  private  note  was  re- 
ceived with  the  most  profound  indifference  and  contempt3." 
I  see  his  design.  The  Duke  of  Grafton  has  been  long  labour- 
dangerous  inlet  to  perjury,  and  a  means  of  rendering  men's  properties 
very  precarious  and  insecure.  The  Court  therefore  set  aside  the  verdict, 
and  ordered  a  new  trial;  and  it  appeared  to  the  Court  to  be  so  gross  a 
misdirection,  that  it  dispensed  with  the  usual  terms  of  payment  of  costs. 
Although  Lord  Mansfield,  in  his  direction  to  the  jury,  represented  the 
trespasses  as  small  and  insignificant,  and  the  action  as  litigious,  the  Court 
«f  Common  Pleas  said  the  trespasses  were  obstinate,  wilful,  and  malicious. 
Mr.  Rowlinson,  the  Plaintiff's  attorney,  felt  so  dissatisfied  with  the  con- 
duct of  Lord  Mansfield  upon  the  occasion,  that  in  the  same  term  a  motion 
was  made  at  his  instigation,  to  have  his  name  struck  off"  the  Rolls  of  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench,  which  was,  after  some  expressions  of  astonish- 
ment, acquiesced  in,  when  he  was  immediately  admitted  into  the  Common 
Pleas. 

1  He  refers  to  the  following  paragraph  in  the  Public  Advertiser  for 
December  6,  1771: — 

"  We  have  the  pleasure  to  assure  the  public,  from  the  most  undoubted 
authority,  that  the  repeated  accounts  of  Her  Royal  Highness  the  Princess 
Dowager  of  Wales  being  very  ill,  and  her  life  in  great  danger,  are  entirely 
false,  such  reports  being  only  calculated  to  promote  the  shameful  spirit  of 
gambling,  by  insurance  on  lives."  The  Princess  Dowager  was  at  this 
time  afflicted  with  a  cancer,  and  died  on  the  8th  of  January  in  the  follow- 
ing year. 

2  He  had  received  a  note  from  Mr.  Woodfall,  vindicating  himself  from 
any  improper  motive  in  his  communication  to  Mr.  Garrick,  which  has  been 
already  referred  to. 

3  The  information  to  Sctevola  was  duly  communicated  in  the  Public  Ad- 
vertiser: and  the  flippancy  of  this  writer's  style,  and  the  coquetry  of  his 
political  attachments,  fully  merited  the  contempt  here  expressed  for  him. 
His  first  two  or  three  letters  were  written  as  an  apology  for  certain  incon- 
siderate expressions  which  had  fallen  from  Lord  Camden,  and  were  not 
deficient  in  merit.  They  were  noticed  by  oar  author  under  the  auxiliary 

signature 


*152  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

ing*  to  detach  Camden.  I  his  Scaevola  is  the  wretchedest  of  all 
fools,  and  dirty  knave. 

Upon  no  account,  nor  for  any  reason  whatsoever  are  you 
to  write  to  me,  until  I  give  you  notice. 

When  the  book  is  finished,  let  me  have  a  sett  bound  in 
vellum,  gilt,  and  lettered  Junius  I.  II.  as  handsomely  as  yoil 
can — the  edges  gilt — let  the  sheets  be  well  dried  before 
binding. — I  must  also  have  two  setts  in  blue  paper  covers. 
This  is  all  the  fee  I  shall  ever  desire  of  you.  I  think  you 
ought  not  to  publish  before  the  second  week  in  January. 

The  London  Packet  is  not  worth  our  notice.  I  suspect 
Garrick,  and  I  would  have  you  hint  so  to  him. 


No.  48. 

January  6, 1772. 

I  have  a  thing  to  mention  to  you  in  great  confidence.  I 
expect  your  assistance,  and  rely  upon"your  secrecy. 

There  is  a  long  paper  ready  for  publication,  but  which 
must  not  appear  until  the  morning  of  the  meeting  of  parlia- 
ment, nor  be  announced  in  any  shape  whatsoever1.  Much 
depends  upon  its  appearing  unexpectedly.  If  you  receive  it 
on  the  8th  or  9th  instant,  can  you  in  a  day  or  two  have  it 
composed,  and  two  proof  sheets  struck  off  and  sent  me;  and 
can  you  keep  the  press  standing  ready  for  the  Public  Ad- 
vertiser of  the  21st,  and  can  all  this  be  done  with  such 
secrecy  that  none  of  your  people  shall  know  what  is  going 

signature  of  Philo-Junius,  in  Letters  of  Junius,  No.  lx.  Oct.  15,  17"1. 
Scxvola,  whoever  he  was,  became  conceited  by  the  attention  thus  bestowed 
Upon  him;  and,  more  especially,  as  some  other  correspondent  of  the  Pub- 
lic Advertiser  had  erroneously  ascribed  his  letters  to  Lord  Camden  him- 
self. To  prove,  however,  that  he  was  not  Lord  Camden,  he  now,  in  the 
midst  of  his  general  admiration  of  his  Lordship's  political  character,  at- 
tacks him  upon  a  variety  of,  what  he  ventures  to  denominate,  capita/  errors, 
and  that  with,  at  hast,  as  much  violence  as  any  of  his  Lordship's  avowed 
adversaries  of  the  day.  In  few  words  he  became  a  perpetual,  wearisome, 
and  contemptible  scribbler;  and  well  deserved  the  chastisement  here 
given  him  !>y  Junius. 

x  Letter  to  Lord  Mansfield.  Junius,  No.  bxviu- 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *153 

forward,  except  the  composer,  and  can  you  rely  on  his  fide- 
lity? Consider  of  it,  and,  if  it  be  possible,  say  yes,  in  your 
paper  to-morrow. 

I  think  it  will  take  four  full  columns  at  the  least,  but  I 
undertake  that  it  shall  sell — It  is  essential  that  I  should 
have  a  proof  sheet,  and  correct  it  myself. 

Let  me  know  if  the  books  are  ready  that  I  may  tell  you 
what  to  do  with  them. 


No.  49. 

Saturday,  January  11, 1772. 

Your  failing  to  send  me  the  proofs,  as  you  engaged  to  do, 
disappoints  and  distresses  me  extremely1.  It  is  not  merely 
to  correct  the  press  (though  even  that  is  of  consequence), 
but  for  another  most  material  purpose2.  This  will  be  entirely 
defeated,  if  you  do  not  let  me  have  the  two  proofs  on  Mon- 
day morning. 

The  paper  itself,  is,  in  my  opinion,  of  the  highest  stile  of 
Junius,  and  cannot  fail  to  sell. — My  reason  for  not  an- 
nouncing it  was  th^t  the  party  might  have  no  time  to  concert 
his  measures  with  the  Ministry.  But,  upon  reflection,  I  think 
it  may  answer  better  (in  order  to  excite  attention)  to  adver- 
tise U  the  day  before,  Junius  to  Lord  Chief  Justice  Mans- 
field to-morrow. 

Quoting  from  memory,  I  have  made  a  mistake  about 
Blackstone,  where  I  say  that  he  confines  the  power  to  the 
Court,  and  does  not  extend  it  to  the  Judges  separately.  Those 
lines  must  be  omitted. — The  rest  is  right.— If  you  have  any 
regard  for  me  or  for  the  cause,  let  nothing  hinder  your  send- 
ing the  proofs  on  Monday. 

No.  50. 

January  16,  1772. 
I  return  you  the  proof,  with  the  errata,  which  you  will 
be  so  good  as  to  correct  carefully.  I  have  the  greatest  rea- 

1  Of  Junius,  No.  lxviii.  referred  to  in  the  preceding-  letter. 

2  He  seems  to  allude  to  a  promise,  or  expectation,  of  legal  assistant 
fl-oin  some  friendly  quarter. 

Vol*  I.  *U 


*  154  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

son  lo  be  pleased  with  your  care  and  attention,  and  wish  it 
were  in  my  power  to  render  you  some  essential  service- 
Announce  it  on  Monday. 


No.  51. 

(Private) 

Saturday,  Jan.  18,  1772. 

The  gentleman1  who  transacts  the  conveyancing  part  of 
our  correspondence  tells  me  there  was  much  difficulty  last 
night.  For  this  reason,  and  because  it  could  be  no  way  ma- 
terial for  me  to  see  a  paper  on  Saturday  which  is  to  appear 
on  Monday,  I  resolved  not  to  send  for  it. — Your  hint  of  this 
morning,  I  suppose  relates  to  this2.— I  am  truly  concerned 
to  see  that  the  publication  of  the  book  is  so  long  delayed. — 
It  ought  to  have  appeared  before  the  meeting  of  Parliament. 
—  By  no  means  would  I  have  you  insert  this  long  letter,  if 
it  made  more  than  the  difference  of  two  days  in  the  publica- 
tion. Believe  me  the  delay  is  a  real  injury  to  the  cause. 
The  Inter  to  M.3  may  come  into  a  new  edition. 

Mr-  Wilkes  seems  not  to  know  that  Morris  published 
that  letter4. — I  think  you  should  set  him  right. 


No.  52. 

^y  January  25,  1772. 

Having  nothing  better  to  do,  I  propose  to  entertain  myself 
and  the  public,  with  torturing  that  ##*#**  ###### 
Barrington*.  He  has  just  appointed  a  French  broker  his  de- 

1  Of  this  gentleman  nothing  is  known. 

2  *'  Mutare  necessarium  est."  Answer  to  correspondents,  Jan.  18,  1772. 

3  Letters  of  Juxii'S,  No.  lxviii. 

4  Mr.  Robert  Morris  was  a  barrister,  who  took  a  very  active  part  in  the 
city  disputes,  and  on  the  popular  side,  and  was  secretary  to  the  Bill  of 
Rights  Society.  For  a  further  account  of  him,  see  note  to  Miscellant  ous 
Letters,  No.  xcm.  Vol.11,  p.  411.  He  occasionally  wrote  in  the  PA. 
The  publication  of  the  letter  alluded  to,  Wilkes  had  attributed  to  a  Mr- 
Cawdron.  See  Private  Letter,  No  82. 

5  Lord  Barrington  was  at  this  time  Secretary  for  the  War  Department. 
He  had  uniformly  exhibited  himself  unfriendly  to  the  popular  cause,  and 
when  in  the  lower  House,  made  the  motion  in  1769,  for  expelling  Wilkes, 

vhich 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  -*155 

puty,  for  no  reason  but  his  relation  to  Bradshaw1.  I  hear 
from  all  quarters,  that  it  is  looked  upon  as  a  most  impudent 
insult  to  the  Army. — Be  careful  not  to  have  it  known  to 
come  from  me.  Such  an  insignificant  creature  is  not  worth 
the  generous  rage  of  Junius.  I  am  impatient  for  the  book. 


No.  53. 

Monday,  Feb.  3,  1772- 

I  confess  I  do  not  see  the  use  of  the  table  of  contents.  I 
think  it  will  be  endless  and  answer  no  purpose; — An  index 
of  proper  names  and  materials  would  in  my  opinion  be  suf- 
ficient  You  may  safely  defy  the  malice  of  Mr.   Wheble2. 

Whoever  buys  such  a  book  will  naturally  prefer  the  Au- 
thor's Edition,  and  I  think  it  will  always  be  a  book  for  sale. 
I  really  am  in  no  hurry  about  that  sett.  Purling,  I  hear,  is  to 
come  in  for  Eastlow. — A  sure  proof  of  the  connection  be- 
tween him  and  government3.  I  would  have  you  open  any 
thing  that  may  be  brought  you  for  me  (except  from  Mr. 
Wilkes) — and  not  forward  it  unless  it  be  material. 

That  large  roll  contained  a  Pamphlet. 


No.  54. 

Monday,  Feb.  10,  1772. 
If  you  have  any  thing  to  communicate,  you  may  send  it 
to  the  original  place  for  once   N.  E.  C. — and  mention  any 
new  place  you  think  proper,  West  of  Temple  Bar.  The  de- 
lay of  the  book  spoils  every  thing. 

■which  was  seconded  by  Rigby.  The  letter  that  accompanied  this  note  is 
numbered  cv.  in  the  Miscellaneous  Collection,  and  the  signature  of  Ju- 
nius will  be  found  to  be  exchanged  for  that  of  Veteran. 

1  Mr.  Chamier,  brother  in  law  to  Bradshaw,  the  Duke  of  Grafton's  pri- 
vate Secretary.  See  some  notice  taken  of  him  in  No.  lxxxiii.  Vol.  II.  p. 
380  of  the  Miscellaneous  Letters — signature  Domitian,  date  December 
24,  1770. 

2  Wheble  had  already  printed  an  imperfect  edition  of  the  Letters  of 
Junius. 

3  John  Purling,  Esq.  one  of  the  directors  of  the  East  India  Company, 
who  took  a  very  active  part  in  their  affairs,  at  that  period. 


*156  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 


No.  55. 

Monday  Night,  Feb.  17,  1772: 
Surely  you  have  misjudged  it  very  much  about  the  book. 
I  could  not  have  conceived  it  possible  that  you  could  pro- 
tract the  publication  so  long. — At  this  time,  particularly 
before  Mr.  Sawbridge's  motion1,  it  would  have  been  of  sin- 
gular use.  You  have  trifled  too  long  with  the  public  expec- 
tation.—At  a  certain  point  of  time  the  appetite  palls. — I 
fear  you  have  already  lost  the  season. — The  book,  I  am 
sure,  will  lose  the  greatest  part  of  the  effect  I  expected  from 
it. — But  I  have  done. 


No.  56. 

About  Feb.  22,  1772. 
I  do  vou  the  justice  to  believe  that  the  delay  has  been 
unavoidable.  The  expedient  \ou  propose  of  printing  the 
Drdi-  ation  and  Preface  in  the  P.  A.  is  unadvisable.  The 
attention  of  the  public  would  then  be  quite  lost  to  the  book 
itself.  I  think  your  rivals  will  be  disappointed.  Nobody 
will  apply  to  them  when  they  can  be  supplied  at  the  foun- 
tain head.  I  hope  you  are  too  forward  to  have  any  room  for 
that  letter  of  Dom'uian2,  otherwise  it  is  merely  indifferent. 
The  Latin  I  thought  much  superior  to  the  English.— The  in- 
tended bill,  in  consequence  of  the  message,  will  be  a  most 
dangerous  innovation  in  the  internal  policy  of  this  country3. 
What  an  abandoned  prostituted  ideot  is  your  Lord  Mayor4. 
The  shameful  mismanagement  which  brought  him  into  office, 
gave  me  the  first  and  an  unconquerable  disgust.— All  I  can 
now  say  is  make  haste  with  the  book. —  C 

1  In  favour  of  triennial  parliaments,  as  already  noticed  in  a  note  to  the 
Preliminary  Dissertation. 

2  This  letter,  for  the  reason  here  stated,  was  not  printed  in  the  genuine 
edition. 

3  The  bill  alluded  to  is  the  Royal  Marriage  Act. 

*In  allusion  to  the  partial  and  impolitic  conduct  of  Mr.  Nash,  at  this 
time  Lord  Mayor,  npon  the  common  questions  of  city  politics  brought  be- 
fore him,  especially  in  refusing  to  call  a  common  hall,  agreeably  to  a  request 
very  generally  signified  to  him  far  tbispurpo6e. 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *157 

The  appointment  of  this  broker1  I  am  told  gives  universal 
disgust.  That  ****  **********  would  never  have 
taken  a  step  apparently  so  absurd,  if  there  were  not  some 
wicked  design  in  it  more  than  we  are  aware  of.  At  any  rate 
the  broker  should  be  run  down.  That  at  least  is  due  to  his 
master. 


No.  57. 

Saturday,  Feb.  29,  1772. 
I  am  very  glad  to  see  that  the  book  will  be  out  before 
Sawbridge's  motion.  There  is  no  occasion  for  a  mark  of  ad  mi- 
ration  at  the  end  of  the  motto.  But  it  is  of  no  moment  what- 
soever. When  you  see  Mr.  W.  pray  return  him  my  thanks 
for  the  trouble  he  has  taken.  I  wish  he  had  taken  more3.— 
I  should  be  glad  to  have  a  sett,  sewed,  left  at  the  same 
place  to-morrow  evening.  Let  it  be  well  sealed  up* 

C. 


No.  58. 

Tuesday,  March  3,  1772. 

Your  letter  was  twice  refused  last  night,  and  the  waiter 
as  often  attempted  to  see  the  person  who  sent  for  it.—- 1  was 
impatient  to  see  the  book,  and  think  I  had  a  right  to  that 
attention  a  little  before  the  general  publication4.  When  I  de- 
sired to  have  two  setts  sewed  and  one  bound  in  vellum,  it 
was  not  from  a  principle  of  economy.  I  despise  such  little 
savings,  and  shall  still  be  a  purchaser.— If  I  was  to  buy  as 
many  setts  as  I  want,  it  would  be  remarked. 

Pray  let  the  two  setts  be  well  parcelled  up  and  left  at  the 
bar  of  Munday's  Coffee-house,  Maiden  Lane,  with  the 
same  direction,  and  with  orders  to  be  delivered  to  a  chair- 
man who  will  ask  for  them  in  the  course  of  to-morrow 
evening.  Farewell. 

1  Chamier.  2  Lord  Barrington. 

3  Mr.  Wilkes,  at  the  request  of  Junius,  perused  and  revised  the  Dedi- 
cation and  Preface  to  the  genuine  edition  of  the  letters. 

4  The  genuine  edition  of  the  letters  was  published  on  the  third  of  March. 
1772. 


*158  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 


No.  59. 

Thursday,  March  S,  1772. 

Your  letters  with  the  books  are  come  safe  to  hand.  The 
difficulty  of  corresponding  arises  from  situation,  and  neces- 
sity to  which  we  must  submit.  Be  assured  I  will  not  give 
you  mort  trouble  than  is  unavoidable. — If  the  vellum  books 
are  not  yet  bound,  I  would  wait  for  the  index.  If  they  are, 
let  me  know  by  a  line  in  the  P.  A. — When  they  are  ready, 
thty  may  safclv  be  left  at  the  same  place  as  last  night. 

Ou  your  account  I  was  alarmed  at  the  price  of  the  book.— 
But  of  the  sale  of  books  I  am  no  judge,  and  can  only  pray 
for  your  success. — What  you  say  about  the  profits1  is  very 
handsome.  I  like  to  deal  with  such  men.  As  for  myself,  be 
assured  that  I  am  far  above  all  pecuniary  views,  and  no 
other  persnn  I  think  has  any  claim  to  share  with  you.  Make 
the  most  of  it  therefore,  and  let  all  your  views  in  life  be  di- 
rected to  a  solid,  however  moderate  independence.  Without 
it  no  man  can  be  happv,nor  even  honest. — 

If  I  saw  any  prospect  of  uniting  the  city  once  more,  I 
would  readily  continue  to  labour  in  the  vineyard.  Whenever 
Mr.  Wilkes  can  tell  me  that  such  an  union  is  in  prospect, 
fee  shall  hear  of  me. 

Qiibd  >/'  quis  existimat  me  aut  voluntate  esse  mutatd^  aut 
debiittata  virtute,  aut  animo  fractoy  vehementer  errat.  Fare- 
well. 

In  the  Preface,  p.  20,  line  7,  read  unseasonable, 
p.  26,  —  18,  —    accuracy2. 

1  Wooclfall  made  Junius  an  offer  of  half  the  profits  of  the  book,  or  if  he 
ghouid  deolinr  accepting  tlu-m  for  himself,  to  give  a  sum  of  money  equal 
to  t  i.  n  amount,  to  an)  ch  i.itv  winch  he  should  chuse  to  name. 

2  These  errors  are  corrected  in  the  present  edition. 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *15$ 

No.  60. 

May  4,  1772. 
If  pars  pro  toto1  be  meant  for  me,  I  must  beg  the  favour 
of  you  to  recall  it.  At  present  it  would  be  difficult  for  me  to 
receive  it. — When  the  books  are  ready,  a  Latin  verse  will 
be  sufficient. 


No.  61. 

Sunday,  May  3,  1772. 
I  am  in  no  manner  of  hurry  about  the  books.  I  hope  the 
sale  has  answered. — I  think  it  will  always  be  a  saleable 
book.  The  inclosed  is  fact,  and  I  wish  it  could  be  printed 
to-morrow.  It  is  not  worth  announcing.  The  proceedings  of 
this  wretch  are  unaccountable.  There  must  be  some  mystery 
in  it  which  I  hope  will  soon  be  discovered  to  his  confusion. 
—Next  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  I  verily  believe  that  the 
blackest  heart  in  the  kingdom  belongs  to  Lord  Barrington2. 


No.  62. 

May  10,  1772. 
Pray  let  this  be  announced,  Memoirs  of  Lord  Barrington 
in  onr  next3.  Keep  the  author  a  secret. 


No.  63. 

January  19,  1773. 
I  have  seen  the  signals  thrown  out  for  your  old  friend 
and  correspondent.  Be  assured  that  I  have  had  good  reason 

1  A  line  in  the  Printer's  notice  to  correspondents,  introduced  as  in  signal 
that  a  letter,  or  parcel,  was  in  waiting  fur  him  at  the  usual  place. 

2  This  note  accompanied  the  letter  signed  Scotus,  addressed  to  his  Lord- 
ship, and  was  printed  as  requested.  Sei-  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  cxi. 
The  Autograph  is  still  in  the  hands  of  the  proprietor  of  this  edition. 

3  The  annunciation  under  this  title,  appeared  in  the  notice  to  corres- 
pondents, Public  Advertiser,  May  II,  and  the  Memoirs  were  printed  in  a 
letter  bearing  the  signature  of  Nemesis,  May  12.  See  Miscellaneous  Let- 
ters, No.  cx,i:ri- 


*160  PRIVATE  LETTERS  OF  JUNIUS 

for  not  complying  with  them.  In  the  present  state  of  things 
if  I  we*e  to  write  again,  I  must  be  as  silly  as  any  of  the 
horned  cattle,  that  run  mad  through  the  city,  or  as  any  of 
your  wise  aldermen.  I  meant  the  cause  and  the  public.  Both 
are  given  up.  I  feel  for  the  honour  of  this  country,  when  I  see 
that  there  are  not  ten  men  in  it,  who  will  unite  and  stand 
together  upon  any  one  question.  But  it  is  all  alike,  vile  and 
contemptible. 

You  have  never  flinched  that  I  know  of;  and  I  shall 
always  rejoice  to  hear  of  your  prosperity. 

If  vou  have  any  thing  to  communicate  (of  moment  to 
yourself)  you  may  use  the  last  address,  and  give  a  hint1. 


No.  64. 

Sir, 
I  have  troubled  you  with  the  perusal  of  two  letters,  as 
that  of  the  prior  date  accounts  for  the  delay  of  not  sending  the 
books  sooner;  and  this  acquaints  you  that  I  did  not  get  them 
out  of  the  bookbinder's  hands  till  yesterday;  nor  though  I 
desired  them  to  be  finished  in  the  most  elegant  manner  possi- 
ble, are  they  done  so  well  as  I  wished.  But,  Sir,  if  the  manner 
of  the  contents  and  index  are  not  agreeable  to  you,  they 
shall  be  done  over  again  according  to  any  directions  you 
shall  please  to  favour  me  with. — With  respect  to  City  poli- 
tics, I  fear  the  breach  is  too  wide  ever  to  be  again  closed, 
and  even  my  friend  Mr.  Wilkes  lost  some  of  his  wonted 
coolness  at  the  late  election  on  Sawbridge,  Oliver,  &c 
scratching  against  him2.  I  hope  you  will  believe  that  how- 
ever agreeable  to  me  it  must  be  to  be  honoured  with  your 
correspondence,  I  should  never  entertain  the  most  distant 

1  This  letter  was  thus  noticed  in  the  answer  to  correspondents  in  the 
P.  A.  March  8, 1773  "The  letter  from  ax  old  friend  and  correspon- 
dent, dated  Jan  19,  came  safe  to  hand,  and  his  directions  are  strictly  fol- 
lowed. £>uod  si  quis  existimat,  aut,  &c." 

2  Mr.  Wilkes  and  Mr.  Townshend  were,  after  a  sharp  contest,  returned 
,.o  the  court  of  Aldermen  for  them  to  make  their  election  of  one  of  these 
gentlemen  to  the  mayor  U\  for  the  year  1772,  when  their  choice  fell  upon 
Mr.  Alderman.  Townshend,  in  consequence  of  Sawbridge  and   Oliver 

scratching 


TO  Mr.  H.  S.  WOODFALL.  *161 

wish  that  one  ray  of  your  splendour  should  be  diminished 
by  your  continuing  to  write. — Mr.  Wilkes  indeed  mention- 
ed to  me  the  other  day  that  he  thought  the  East  India  Com- 
pany a  proper  subject;  and  asked  if  I  could  communicate 
any  thing  to  you,  to  which  my  reply  was  that  I  could  not 
tell,  (as  I  did  not  know  whether  you  might  chuse  to  be  in- 
truded upon.)  You  will  perceive  by  the  papers  that  two  per- 
sons have  forced  themselves  upon  us,  who,  without  a  tythe 
of  Mr.  Wilkes's  abilities,  imagine  the  public  will  look  up  to 
them  as  their  deliverers;  but  they  are  most  egregiously  mis- 
taken, as  every  one  who  possesses  a  grain  of  common  sense 
hold  them  in  almost  utter  contempt.  You  will  probably 
guess  who  I  mean,  and  were  I  capable  of  drawing  a  parallel, 
I  should  borrow  some  part  of  it  from  Shakespeare's  Iago 

and  Roderigo. Should  it  please  the  Almighty  to  spare 

your  life  till  the  next  general  election,  and  I  should  at  that 
time  exist,  I  shall  hope  you  will  deign  to  instruct  me  for 
whom  I  should  give  my  vote,  as  my  wish  is  to  be  represented 
by  the  most  honest  and  able,  and  I  know  there  cannot  be 
any  one  who  is  so  fit  to  judge  as  yourself.  I  have  no  con- 
nexions to  warp  me,  nor  am  I  acquainted  with  but  one  per- 
son who  would  speak  to  me  on  the  subject,  and  that  gentle- 
man is,  I  believe,  a  true  friend  to  the  real  good  of  his  coun- 
try; I  mean  Mr.  Glover,  the  author  of  Leonidas.  As  I 
thought  serjeant  Glynn  deserving  of  something  more  than 
the  mere  fees  of  his  profession,  for  the  pains  he  took  upon 
my  trial,  I  have  made  a  purchase  of  a  small  freehold  at 
Brentford  by  way  of  qualification,  in  order  to  convince  him, 
if  he  should  offer  himself  at  the  next  election,  whenever  it 
should  happen,  that  I  hold  his  services  in  grateful  remem- 
brance. But  I  am  since  informed  that  it  is  not  his  intention, 
and  that  Lord  Percy  is  to  be  joined  with  Sir  W.  B.  Proctor, 

scratching1  against  Wilkes.  The  candidates  for  that  office,  with  the  number 

which  they  polled,  were  as  under: 

Mr.  Alderman  Wilkes  —  2301 
Townshend  —  2278 
Halifax  —  2126 
Shakespeare    —    19112 

Vol.  I.  *  X 


#162  PRIVATE  LETTERS  &c. 

who  is  to  be  supported  by  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's 
interest.— -I  have  heard  much  of  a  most  trimming  letter  from 
Mr.  Stewart  to  Lord  Mansfield  on  the  Douglas  cause,  but 
cannot  possibly  get  a  copy,  which  probably  would  be  a  good 
letter  to  print.— 

If,  Sir,  you  should  not  disapprove  of  the  Contents  and 
Index,  I  thought  of  advertising  them  in  the  manner  of  the 
enclosed  form,  if  I  have  your  permission  so  to  do,  but  not 
otherwise. — May  I  beg  the  favour  of  a  line  in  answer?  Be- 
lieve me,  Sir,  to  be,  with  gratitude  and  respect, 

Your  much  obliged 
humble  servant  to  command, 

HENRY  SAMPSON  WOODFALL. 

Sunday,  March  7,  1773. 


PRIVATE  CORRESPONDENCE 


BETWEEN 


JUNIUS  AND  MR.  WILKES. 


PRIVATE  CORRESPONDENCE 


BETWEEN 


JUNIUS  AND  MR.  WILKES 


No.  65. 


TO  JOHN  WILKES,  ESQ. 

London,  21st  August,  1771 1. 
I  PRESUME,  Sir,  you  are  satisfied  that  I  mean  you  well, 
and  that  is  not  necessary  to  assure  you  that  while  you  adhere 
to  the  resolution  of  depending  only  upon  the  public  favour, 
(which,  if  you  have  half  the  understanding  I  attribute  to  you, 
you  never  can  depart  from)  you  may  rely  upon  my  utmost 
assistance.  Whatever  imaginary  views  may  be  ascribed  to 
the  author,  it  must  always  make  part  of  Junius's  plan  to 
support  Mr.  Wilkes  while  he  makes  common  cause  with  the 
people.  I  would  engage  your  favourable  attention  to  what  I 
am  going  to  say  to  you;  and  I  intreat  you  not  to  be  too 
hasty  in  concluding,  from  the  apparent  tendency  of  this  let- 
ter, to  any  possible  interests  or  connexions  of  my  own.  It  is 
a  very  common  mistake  in  judgment,  and  a  very  dangerous 
one  in  conduct,  first  to  look  for  nothing  in  the  argument 
proposed  to  us,  but  the  motive  of  the  man  who  uses  it,  and 
then  to  measure  the  truth  of  his  argument  by  the  motive  we 

1  On  this  letter  is  written  in  Mr.  Wilkes's  own  hand,  the  following 
memorandum: 

"August  21,  1771. 
"  Received  on  Wednesday  noon  by  a  chairman,  who  said  he  brought  it 
from  a  gentleman  whom  he  saw  in  Lancaster  Court,  in  the  Strand. 

J.  W." 


*166  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

have  assigned  to  him.  With  regard  to  me,  Sir,  any  refinement 
in  this  way  would  assuredly  mislead  you;  and  though  I  do 
not  disclaim  the  idea  of  some  personal  views  to  future  ho- 
nour and  advantage,  (you  would  not  believe  me  if  I  did)  yet 
I  can  truly  affirm,  that  neither  are  they  little  in  themselves, 
nor  can  they  by  any  possible  conjecture  be  collected  from 
my  writings. 

Mr.  Home,  after  doing  much  mischief,  is  now,  I  think, 
completely  defeated  and  disarmed.  The  author  of  the  late 
unhappy  divisions  in  the  city  is  removed. — Why  should  we 
suffer  his  works  to  live  after  him?  In  this  view,  I  confess,  I 
am  vindictive,  and  would  visit  his  sins  upon  his  children.  I 
would  punish  him  in  his  offspring,  by  repairing  the  breaches 
he  has  made. — Convinced  that  I  am  speaking  to  a  man  who 
has  spirit  enough  to  act  if  his  judgment  be  satisfied,  I  wiU 
not  scruple  to  declare  at  once,  that  Mr.  Sawbridge  ought  to 
be  Lord  Mayor,  and  that  he  ought  to  owe  it  to  your  first 
motion,  and  to  the  exertion  of  all  your  credit  in  the  city. — 
I  affirm,  without  a  doubt,  that  political  prudence,  the  benefit 
of  the  cause,  your  public  reputation  and  personal  interest, 
do  all  equally  demand  this  conduct  of  you. — I  do  not  deny 
that  a  stroke  like  this  is  above  the  level  of  vulgar  policy,  or 
that  if  you  were  a  much  less  considerable  man  than  you 
are,  it  would  not  suit  you.  Bat  you  will  recollect,  Sir,  that 
the  public  opinion  of  you  rises  every  day,  and  that  you  must 
enlarge  your  plan  as  you  proceed,  since  you  have  every 
day  a  new  acquisition  of  credit  to  maintain. — I  offer  you  the 
sincere  opinion  of  a  man,  who,  perhaps,  has  more  leisure  to 
make  reflections  than  you  have,  and  who,  though  he  stands 
clear  of  all  business  and  intrigue,  mixes  sufficiently  for  the 
purposes  of  intelligence  in  the  conversation  of  the  world. 

Whatever  language  you  in  prudence  assume  to  the  pub- 
lic, you  cannot  but  be  sensible  that  the  separation  of  those 
gentlemen  who  withdrew  from  the  Bill  of  Rights  was  of 
considerable  disservice  to  you.  It  required,  in  my  opinion, 
your  utmost  dexterity  and  resolution,  and  not  a  little  of 
your  good  fortune,  to  get  the  better  of  it.  But  are  you  now 
really  upon  the  best  ground  on  which  Mr.  Wilkes  might 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *167 

stand  in  the  city?  Will  you  say,  that  to  separate  Mr.  Saw- 
bridge  from  a  connexion  every  way  hostile  to  you,  and  to 
secure  him  against  the  insidious  arts  of  Mr.  Home,  and  the 
fury  of  Mr.  Townshend,  (if  it  could  be  done  without  em- 
barrassing your  leading  measures,  and  much  more  if  it  pro- 
moted them)  would  not  give  you  a  considerable  personal 
gratification? — Will  you  say,  that  a  public  declaration  of 
Mr.  Sawbridge  in  your  favour,  and  the  appearance  of  your 
acting  together,  (I  do  not  speak  at  present  of  a  hearty  coali- 
tion or  confidence)  would  not  contribute  to  give  you  a  more 
secure,  a  more  permanent,  and  without  offence  to  any  man, 
a  more  honourable  hold  upon  the  city  than  you  have  at 
present?  What  sensations  do  you  conceive  a  union  between 
you  and  Mr.  Sawbridge  would  excite  in  the  breast  of  IVTt. 
Home?  Would  it  not  amount  to  a  detisive  refutation  of  all 
the  invidious  arguments  he  has  drawn  from  your  being  de- 
serted by  so  many  of  the  considerable  figures  of  the  party? 
The  answer  to  these  questions  is  too  obvious  to  be  mis- 
taken. But  you  will  say  to  yourself  what  you  would  not 
confess  to  Junius. — 4  Mr.  Sawbridge  is  a  man  of  unques- 
tionable probity,  and  the  concurrence  of  his  reputation  would 
undoubtedly  be  of  service  to  me;  but  he  has  not  pliancy 
enough  to  yield  to  persuasion,  and  I,  Wilkes,  am  determined 
not  to  suffer  another  to  reap  the  harvest  of  my  labours:  that 
is,  to  take  the  lead  of  me  in  the  city.' — Sir,  I  do  not  mean 
or  expect  that  you  should  make  such  a  sacrifice  to  any  man. 
But  besides  difference  in  point  of  conduct  between  leading 
and  going  foremost,  I  answer  your  thoughts  when  I  say, 
that  although  Mr.  Sawbridge  is  not  to  be  directed  (and  even 
this  perhaps  is  not  so  literally  and  completely  true  as  he 
himself  imagines)  on  the  other  hand  he  does  not  mean  to 
direct.  His  disposition,  as  you  well  know,  is  not  fitted  for 
that  active  management  and  intrigue  which  acquire  an  ope- 
rating popularity,  and  direct  the  people  by  their  passions. 
I  attribute  to  you  both  the  most  honourable  intentions  for 
the  public,  but  you  travel  different  roads,  and  never  can  be 
rivals. — It  is  not  that  Mr.  Sawbridge  does  not  wish  to  be 
popular;  but,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  his  virtues  have 


*168  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

not  ostentation  enough  for  the  ordinary  uses  of  party,  and 
that  they  lead  rather  to  the  esteem  of  individuals  than  to 
popular  opinion. — This  I  conceive  is  exactly  the  man  you 
want — you  cannot  always  support  a  ferment  in  the  minds  of 
men.  There  will  necessarily  be  moments  of  languor  and 
fatigue;  and  upon  these  occasions  Mr.  Sawbridge's  reputed 
firmness  and  integrity  may  be  a  capital  resource  to  you,— 
you  have  too  much  sagacity  not  to  perceive  how  far  this 
reasoning  might  be  carried. 

In  the  very  outset,  you  reap  a  considerable  advantage, 
either  from  his  acceptance  or  refusal. — What  a  copious  sub- 
ject of  ostentation! — what  rich  colours  to  the  public!  your 
zeal  to  restore  tranquillity  to  the  city. —  The  sacrifice  of  all 
personal  recollections  in  favour  of  a  man  whose  general  cha- 
racter you  esteem; — the  public  good  preferred  to  every  pri- 
vate or  interested  consideration,  with  a  long  et  ccetera  to 
your  own  advantage. — Yet  I  do  not  mean  to  persuade  you 
to  so  simple  a  part  as  that  of  contributing  to  gratify  Mr. 
Sawbridge,  without  a  reciprocal  assurance  from  him,  that 
upon  fair  and  honourable  occasions  he  will  in  return  pro- 
mote your  advantage. — Your  own  judgment  will  easily  sug- 
gest to  you  such  terms  of  acknowledgment  as  may  be  bind- 
ing upon  him  in  point  of  gratitude,  and  not  offensive  to  his 
delicacy.— I  have  not  entered  into  the  consideration  of  any 
objections  drawn  from  the  fertile  field  of  provocation  and 
resentment. — Common  men  are  influenced  by  common  mo- 
tives;— but  you,  Sir,  who  pretend  to  lead  the  people,  must 
act  upon  higher  principles.  To  make  our  passions  subservi- 
ent to  you,  you  must  command  your  own.  The  man,  who 
for  any  personal  indulgence  whatsoever,  can  sacrifice  a  great 
purpose  to  a  little  one,  is  not  qualified  for  the  management 
of  great  affairs. — 

Let  me  suppose  then  that  every  material  difficulty  on 
your  part  is  removed;  and  that,  as  far  as  you  alone  are  con- 
cerned, you  would  be  ready  to  adopt  the  plan  I  propose  to 
you. 

If  you  are  a  man  of.  honour  you  will  still  have  a  powerful 
objection  to  oppose  to  me.  Admitting  the  apparent  advan- 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *169 

tage  to  your  own  purposes,  and  to  the  cause  you  are  engaged 
in,  you  will  tell  me  *  that  you  are  no  longer  at  liberty  to 
chuse; — that  the  desertion  of  those  persons  who  once  pos- 
sessed a  warm  attachment  to  you,  has  reduced  you  to  a 
situation  in  which  you  cannot  do  that  which  is  absolutely 
best; — that  Mr.  Crosby  has  deserved  every  thing  from  you 
and  from  the  city,  and  that  you  stand  engaged  to  contribute 
your  whole  strength  to  continue  him  another  year  in  the 
mayoralty.' — My  reply  to  this  very  just  objection  is  ad- 
dressed rather  to  Mr.  Crosby  than  to  Mr.  Wilkes.  He 
ought  at  all  events  to  be  satisfied;  and  if  I  cannot  bring  him 
over  to  my  opinion,  there  is  an  end  of  the  argument;  for  I 
do  agree  with  you  most  heartily,  that  it  is  as  gross  a  breach 
of  policy  as  of  morals,  to  sacrifice  the  man  who  has  deserved 
well  of  us  to  any  temporary  benefit  whatsoever.  Far  from 
meaning  to  separate  you  from  Mr.  Crosby,  it  is  essential  to 
the  measure  I  recommend,  that  it  should  be  your  joint  act. 
Nay,  it  is  he  who  in  the  first  instancy  should  open  the  com- 
munication with  Mr.  Sawbridge;  nor  is  it  possible  for  you 
to  gain  any  credit  by  the  measure  in  which  he  will  not  of 
necessity  be  a  considerable  sharer.  But  now,  for  considera- 
tions which  immediately  affect  Mr.  Crosby. 

Your  plan,  as  I  am  informed,  is  to  engage  the  livery  to 
return  him  with  Mr.  Bridgen. — In  my  own  opinion  the 
court  of  aldermen  will  choose  Bridgen,  consequently  the 
sacrifice  I  require  of  Mr.  Crosby  would  in  effect  be  nothing. 
That  he  will  be  defeated  is  to  my  judgment  inevitable.  It  is 
for  him  to  consider  whether  the  idea  of  a  defeat  be  not  al- 
ways attended  with  some  loss  of  reputation.  In  that  case  too 
he  will  have  forced  upon  the  citizens  (whom  he  professes  to 
love  and  respect)  a  magistrate,  upon  whose  odious  and  con- 
temptible character  he  at  present  founds  his  only  hopes  of 
success. — Do  you  think  that  the  city  will  not  once  in  the 
course  of  a  twelvemonth  be  sensible  of  the  displeasure  you 
have  done  them? — Or  that  it  will  not  be  placed  in  strong 
terms  to  your  account.  I  appeal  to  Miss  Wilkes,  whose 
judgment  I  hear  highly  commended, — would  she  think  her- 
self much  indebted  to  her  favourite  admirer,  if  he  forced  a 

Vol.  I.  #  r 


#170  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

most  disagreeable  partner  upon  her  for  a  long  winter's  night, 
because  he  could  not  dance  with  her  himself? 

You  will  now  say; — '  Sir,  we  understand  the  politics  of 
the  city  better  than  you  do,  and  are  well  assured  that  Mr. 
Crosby  will  be  chosen  Lord  Mayor; — otherwise  we  allow 
that  upon  your  plan  he  might  acquire  credit  without  forfeit- 
ing any  real  advantage.*  Upon  this  ground  I  expect  you,  for 
I  confess  it  is  incumbent  upon  me  to  meet  your  argument, 
where  it  lies  strongest  against  me. — Taking  it  for  granted, 
then,  that  Mr.  Crosby  may  be  Lord  Mayor,  I  affirm  that  it 
is  not  his  interest,  because  it  is  not  his  greatest  interest.  The 
little  profit  of  the  salary  cannot  possibly  be  in  contemplation 
with  him. — I  do  not  doubt  that  he  would  rather  make  it  an 
expensive  office  to  himself.  His  view  must  be  directed  then 
to  the  flattering  distinction  of  succeeding  to  a  second  may- 
oralty, and,  what  is  still  more  honourable,  to  the  being 
thought  worthy  of  it  by  his  fellow-citizens. — Placing  this 
advantage  in  its  strongest  light,  I  say  that  every  purpose  of 
distinction  is  as  completely  answered  by  his  being  known  to 
have  had  the  employment  in  his  power  (which  may  be  well 
insisted  upon  in  argument,  and  never  can  be  disproved  by  the 
fact)  as  by  his  accepting  it.  To  this  I  add  the  signal  credit  he 
will  acquire  with  every  honest  man  by  renouncing,  upon  mo- 
tives of  the  clearest  and  most  disinterested  public  spirit,  a 
personal  honour,  which  you  may  fairly  tell  the  world  was 
unquestionably  within  his  reach. — But  these  are  trifles. — I 
assert  that  by  now  accepting  the  mayoralty  (which  he  may 
take  hereafter  whenever  he  pleases)  he  precludes  himself 
from  soliciting,  with  any  colour  of  decency,  a  real  and  solid 
reward  from  the  city. — I  mean  that  he  should  be  returned 
for  London  in  the  next  Parliament. — I  think  his  conduct 
entitles  him  to  it,  and  that  he  cannot  fail  of  succeeding  if  he 
does  not  furnish  his  opponents  with  too  just  a  pretence  for 
saying  that  the  city  have  already  rewarded  him.  On  the  con- 
trary with  what  force  and  truth  may  he  tell  his  fellow-citi- 
zens at  the  next  election,  *■  for  your  sakes  I  relinquished  the 
honour  you  intended  me.  The  common  good  required  it. 
But  I  did  not  mean  to  renounce  my  hopes  that  upon  a  pro- 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *171 

per  occasion  you  would  honour  me  with  a  public  mark  of 
your  approbation.' 

You  see  I  do  not  insist  upon  the  good  effects  of  Mr.  Saw- 
bridge's  gratitude,  yet  I  am  sure  it  may  be  depended  upon. 
I  do  not  say  that  he  is  a  man  to  go  all  lengths  with  Mr. 
Wilkes;  but  you  may  be  assured  that  it  is  not  danger  that 
will  not  deter  him,  and  that  wherever  you  have  the  voice  of 
the  people  with  you,  he  will,  upon  principle,  support  their 
choice  at  the  hazard  of  his  life  and  fortune. 

Now,  Sir.  supposing  all  objections  are  removed,  and  that 
you  and  Mr.  Crosby  are  agreed,  the  question  is  in  v  hat 
manner  is  the  business  to  be  opened  to  Mr.  Saw  bridge. 
Upon  this  point  too  I  shall  offer  you  my  opinion,  because 
the  plan  of  this  letter  would  not  otherwise  be  complete.— 
At  the  same  time  I  do  very  unaffectedly  submit  myself  to 
your  judgment. 

I  would  have  my  Lord  Mayor  begin  by  desiring  a  private 
interview  between  him,  Mr.  Crosby  and  yourself.  Very 
little  preface  will  be  necessary.  You  have  a  man  to  deal 
with  who  is  too  honourable  to  take  an  unfair  advantage  of 
you.  With  such  a  man  you  gain  every  thing  by  frankness 
and  candour,  and  hazard  nothing  by  the  confidence  you  re- 
pose in  him. — Notwithstanding  any  passages  in  this  letter  I 
would  shew  him  the  whole  of  it;  in  a  great  business  there  is 
nothing  so  fatal  as  cunning  management; — and  I  would  tell 
him  it  contained  the  plan  upon  which  Mr.  Crosby  and  you 
were  desirous  to  act,  provided  he  would  engage  to  concur 
in  it  bona  Jide,  so  far  forth  as  he  was  concerned.  There  is 
one  condition  I  own  which  appears  to  me  a  sine  qua  non; 
and  yet  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  proposed  ita  terms  unless 
his  own  good  sense  suggests  the  necessity  of  it  to  him. — I 
mean  the  total  and  absolute  renunciation  of  Mr.  Home.  It 
is  very  likely  indeed  that  this  gentleman  may  do  the  busi- 
ness for  himself,  either  by  laying  aside  the  masque  at  once, 
or  by  abusing  Mr.  Sawbridge  for  accepting  the  mayoralty 
upon  any  terms  whatsoever  of  accommodation  with  Mr. 
Wilkes. 

This  letter,  Sir,  is  not  intended  for  a  correct  or  polished 


*172  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

composition;  but  it  contains  the  very  best  of  Junius's  un- 
derstanding. Do  not  treat  me  so  unworthily,  or  rather  do 
not  degrade  yourself  so  much,  as  to  suspect  me  of  any  in- 
terested view  to  Mr.  Sawbridge's  particular  advantage.  By 
all  that's  honourable  I  mean  nothing  but  the  cause;  and  I 
may  defy  your  keenest  penetration  to  assign  a  satisfactory 
reason  why  Junius,  whoever  he  be,  should  have  a  personal 
interest  in  giving  the  mayoralty  to  Mr.  Sawbridge,  rather 
than  to  Mr.  Crosby. 

I  am  heartily  weary  of  writing,  and  shall  reserve  another 
subject,  on  which  I  mean  to  address  you,  for  another  oppor- 
tunity.— I  think  that  this  letter,  if  you  act  upon  it,  should 
be  a  secret  to  every  body  but  Mr.  Sawbridge  and  my  Lord 
Mayor. 

JUNIUS*. 


No.  66. 

TO  JOHN  WILKES,  Esq. 

London,  7th  Sept.  177V. 
As  this  letter,  Sir,  has  no  relation  to  the  subject  of  my 
last,  the  motives  upon  which  you  may  have  rejected  one  of 
my  opinions,  ought  not  to  influence  your  judgment  of  ano- 

*  The  plan  recommended  by  Junius  in  the  above  letter  was  not  acted 
upon  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  for  the  reasons  assigned  by  him  in  his  letter  of  Sept. 
12,  1771,  (No.  67.)    The  consequence  was,  that  Mr.  Alderman  Nash,  the 
ministerial  candidate,  was  elected  Lord  Mayor,  to  the  infinite  mortifica- 
tion of  Junius,  who,  in  Private  Letter,  No.  56,  makes  the  following  obser- 
vation upon  him  and  his  election.  "  What  an  abandoned,  prostituted  idiot 
is  your  Lord  Mayor!  The  shameful  mismanagement,  which  brought  him 
into  office,  gave  me  the  first,  and  an  unconquerable  disgust."  The  sub- 
joined is  a  list  of  the  candidates  for  that  office,  with  the  numbers  affixed 
to  their  respective  names  as  they  stood  at  the  close  of  the  poll:— 
For  Mr.  Alderman  Nash         -        -        2199 
Mr.  Alderman  Sawbridge         -         1879 
The  Lord  Mayor       -       -        -         1795 
Mr.  Alderman  Halifax     -         -  816 

Mr.  Alderman  Townshend       -  151 

Sir  Henry  Bankes     ...  36 

■  Marked  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  "  Received  in  Plince'fl  Court,  Saturday,  Sept. 
Y,  1771." 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *173 

ther.  I  am  not  very  sanguine  in  my  expectations  of  per- 
suading, nor  do  I  think  myself  intitled  to  quarrel  with  any 
man,  for  not  following  my  advice;  yet  this,  I  believe,  is  a 
species  of  injustice  you  have  often  experienced  from  your 
friends.  From  you,  Sir,  I  expect  in  return,  that  you  will  not 
remember  how  unsuccessfully  I  have  recommended  one 
measure  to  your  consideration,  lest  you  should  think  your- 
self bound  to  assert  your  consistency,  and,  in  the  true  spirit 
of  persecution,  to  pass  the  same  sentence  indifferently  upon 
all  my  opinions.  Forgive  this  levity,  and  now  to  the  busi- 
ness. 

A  man,  who  honestly  engages  in  a  public  cause,  must 
prepare  himself  for  events  which  will  at  once  demand  his 
utmost  patience,  and  rouse  his  warmest  indignation.  I  feel 
myself,  at  this  moment,  in  the  very  situation  I  describe;  yet 
from  the  common  enemy  I  expect  nothing  but  hostilities 
against  the  people.  It  is  the  conduct  of  our  friends  that 
surprises  and  afflicts  me.  I  cannot  but  resent  the  injury 
done  to  the  common  cause  by  the  assembly  at  the  London 
Tavern,  nor  can  I  conceal  from  you  my  own  particular  dis- 
appointment. They  had  it  in  their  power  to  perform  a  real, 
effectual  service  to  the  nation;  and  we  expected  from  them 
a  proof,  not  only  of  their  zeal,  but  of  their  judgment. — 
Whereas  the  measure  they  have  adopted  is  so  shamefully 
injudicious,  with  regard  to  its  declared  object,  that,  in  my 
opinion,  it  will,  and  reasonably  ought,  to  make  their  zeal 
very  questionable  with  the  people  they  mean  to  serve.  When 
I  see  a  measure  excellent  in  itself,  and  not  absolutely  unat- 
tainable, either  not  made  the  principal  object,  or  extrava- 
gantly loaded  with  conditions  palpably  absurd  or  impracti- 
cable, I  cannot  easily  satisfy  myself,  that  the  man,  who 
proposes  it,  is  quite  so  sincere  as  he  pretends  to  be.  You  at 
least,  Mr.  Wilkes,  should  have  shewn  more  temper  and  pru- 
dence, and  a  better  knowledge  of  mankind.  No  personal 
respects  whatsoever  should  have  persuaded  you  to  concur 
in  these  ridiculous  resolutions.  But  my  own  zeal,  I  per- 
ceive, betrays  me:  I  will  endeavour  to  keep  a  better  guard 
upon  my  temper,  and  apply  to  your  judgment  in  the  most 
cautious  and  measured  language. 


*174  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

I  object,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  bulk,  and  much  more  to 
the  stile  of  your  resolutions  of  the  23d  of  July*;  though 
some  part  of  the  preamble  is  as  pointed  as  I  could  wish. 
You  talk  of  yourselves  with  too  much  authority  and  im- 

*  A  copy  of  which  is  subjoined,  to  enable  the  reader  the  better  to 
understand  Junius's  objections  to  them.  They  are  as  follow:— 

London  Tavern,  July  23,  1771. 

SUPPORTERS  OF  THE  BILL  OF  RIGHTS. 

SAVAGE  BARRELL,  ESQ.  IN  THE  CHAIR. 

Resolved, 

That  the  preamble,  with  the  articles  reported  this  day  from  the  com- 
mittee, be  printed  and  published  from  this  society. 

Whoever  seriously  considers  the  conduct  of  administration,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  can  hardly  entertain  a  doubt,  that  a  plan  is  formed  to 
subvert  the  constitution. 

In  the  same  manner,  whoever  attentively  examines  into  the  proceedings 
of  the  present  House  of  Commons,  must  apprehend,  that  such  another 
house  for  seven  years,  after  the  termination  of  the  present  parliament, 
would  effectually  accomplish  the  views' of  the  Court,  and  leave  no  hope  of 
redress  but  in  an  appeal  to  God. 

The  Middlesex  election,  taken  on  its  true  ground;  the  employment  of 
the  standing  army,  in  St.  George's  Fields;  the  granting  half  a  million, 
without  inquiring  into  the  expenditure  of  the  civil  list  money,  and  upon 
the  dangerous  principle  of  considering  the  debts  of  the  civil  list  as  the 
debts  of  the  nation;  and  encroaching,  to  discharge  them,  upon  the  sinking 
fund,  the  great  support  of  public  credit;  the  attempts  made  on  juries,  the 
last  sacred  bulwark  of  liberty  and  law;  the  arbitrary  and  venal  hand  with 
which  government  is  conducted  in  Ireland;  the  new  and  most  unconstitu- 
tional mode  of  raising  a  revenue  on  the  people  of  America,  without  asking 
the  consent  of  their  representatives;  the  introduction  of  an  universal  excise 
in  America,  instead  of  the  laws  of  customs;  the  advancing  the  military 
above  the  civil  power,  and  employing  troops  to  awe  the  legislature: — All 
these  are  measures  of  so  marked,  so  mischievous  a  nature,  that  it  is  im- 
possible they  should  be  unfelt  or  misunderstood:  yet  these  are  measures 
which  the  House  of  Commons  have  acquiesced  in,  countenanced,  or 
executed. 

If  the  present  House  of  Commons  then  have  given  such  vital  wounds 
to  the  constitution,  who  is  it  can  doubt,  who  is  it  can  hope,  that  the  con- 
duct of  such  another  House,  will  not  be  mortal  to  our  liberties? 

The  trustees  of  the  people  should  be  pure  of  all  interested  communica- 
tion with  the  Court  or  its  ministers;  yet  the  corrupt  correspondence 
between  the  members  of  the  House  and  the  Court  is  as  notorious  now  as 
it  is  abhorrent  from  every  great  and  good  purpose  of  their  institution. 
Placemen,  pensioners,  contractors  and  receivers  of  lottery  tickets,  abound 

to 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *175 

portance.  By  assuming  this  false  pomp  and  air  of  conse- 
quence, you  either  give  general  disgust,  or,  what  is  infinitely 
more  dangerous,  you  expose  yourselves  to  be  laughed  at. 
The  English  are  a  fastidious  people,  and  will  not  submit  to 

to  such  a  degree  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  it  is  impossible  a  House 
so  constituted  can  do  their  duty  to  the  people. 

It  must  be  plain  to  the  most  common  apprehension,  that  men  deputed 
by  the  people,  to  watch  over  and  guard  their  rights  against  the  Crown 
and  its  ministers,  and,  for  that  purpose,  vested  with  the  transcendent 
powers  of  refusing  aid  to  the  one,  and  impeaching  the  other,  can  never 
duly  exercise  those  powers,  or  fulfil  the  intention  of  their  election,  if 
they  are  kept  in  pay  of  that  Crown  and  those  ministers.  What  is  the 
plain  and  inevitable  consequence  then  of  entrusting  such  men  with  the 
guardianship  of  our  rights,  but  that  our  rights  must  be  betrayed  and 
violated!  Thus  we  have  seen  a  House  of  Commons  infringing,  as  the 
Court  had  pre-ordained,  the  sacred  birthright  of  the  people  in  the  freedom 
of  election;  erasing  a  judicial  record;  committing  to  the   Tower,  and 
threatening  with  impeachment,  the  friends  of  the  people,  and  the  de- 
fenders of  the  law;  while  the  favourites  of  the  Court  are  suffered  to  sport 
with  the  laws,  and  trample  on  the  constitution,  not  only  with  impunity,  but 
i  with   approbation;  curbing  the  people  rigorously,  and  without  feeling; 
while  they  uphold  ministers,  who  are  abhorred  by  the  nation,  in  the  most 
i  dangerous  and  alarming  exertions  of  power;  granting  money  with  the 
(  most  liberal,  the  most  licentious  hand  to  those  ministers  against  whom 
the  voice  of  the  people  calls  loudly  for  impeachment.  We  have  a  suspecting 
1  people,  and  a  confiding  representative;  a  complaining  people,  and  an  ex- 
I  ulting  representative;  a  remonstrating  people,  and  an  addressing  adulating 
i  representative, — a  representative,  that  is  an  engine  of  oppression  in  the 
hand  of  the  Crown,  instead  of  being  a  grand  controuling  inquest  in  favour 
of  the   people.  Such  a  representative  is  a  monster  in  the  constitution, 
which  must  fill  every  considerate  man  with  grief,  alarm,  astonishment, 
and  indignation. 

It  is  corruption  that  has  engendered,  nursed,  and  nourished  this  monster. 
Against  such  corruption,  then,  all  men,  who  value  the  preservation  of 
their  dearest  rights,  are  called  upon  to  unite.  Let  us  remember,  that  we 
ourselves,  our  children,  and  our  posterity,  must  be  freemen  or  slaves;  as 
we  preserve  or  prostitute  the  noble  birthright  our  ancestors  bequeathed 
us:  for  should  this  corruption  be  once  firmly  rooted,  we  shall  be  an  undone 
people. 

Already  is  it  fixed  among  the  representative,  and  we  taste,  a  thousand 
ways,  the  bitter  Fruit  which  it  produces;  should  it  extend  equally  to  the 
electors,  we  mast  fall,  as  Greece  and  Rome  have  fallen,  by  the  same 
means,  from  the  same  liberty  and  glory,  to  slavery,  contempt,  and 
wretchedness. 

Impressed  with  these  ideas,  the  gentlemen  who  compose  the  Society  of 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  hare  determined  to  use  their  utmost  endeavours  to 

exterminate 


I 


*176  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

be  talked  to  in  so  high  a  tone,  by  a  set  of  private  gentlemen, 
of  whom  they  know  nothing,  but  that  they  call  themselves 
Supporters  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  There  are  questions,  which, 
in  good  policy,  you  should  never  provoke  the  people  in 

exterminate  this  corruption,  by  providing  for  the  freedom  of  election,  the 
equal  representation  of  the  people,  the  integrity  of  the  representative,  and 
the  redress  of  grievances.  It  is  their  great  wish  to  render  the  House 
of  Commons  what  it  constitutionally  ought  to  be,  the  temple  of  liberty. 
With  these  views  they  have  drawn  up  the  following  articles,  which  they 
now  submit  to  the  electors  of  Great  Britain.  At  the  same  time  they,  with 
great  deference,  take  the  liberty  of  recommending  to  the  independent 
electors  to  form  those  articles  into  a  solemn  declaration,  which  the  candi- 
dates, whom  they  support,  shall  be  required  as  the  indispensable  condition 
of  their  being  supported  to  sign  and  seal,  publicly,  at  the  general  meeting, 
or  at  the  place  of  election,  binding  themselves,  by  oath,  to  a  due  and  sacred 
observance  of  what  is  therein  contained. 

The  declaration  so  executed,  may  be  deposited  in  the  hands  of  the 
coroner,  clerk  of  the  peace,  or  magistrate  before  whom  the  oath  was 
made,  as  a  public  memorial  of  what  the  constituent  has  demanded,  and 
the  representative  has  pledged  himself  to  perform. 

1.  You  shall  consent  to  no  supplies,  without  a  previous  redress  of 
grievances. 

2.  You  shall  promote  a  law,  subjecting  each  candidate  to  an  oath, 
against  having  used  bribery,  or  any  other  illegal  means  of  compassing  his 
election. 

3.  You  shall  promote,  to  the  utmost  of  your  power,  a  full  and  equal  re- 
presentation of  the  people  in  parliament. 

4.  You  shall  endeavour  to  restore  annual  parliaments. 

5.  You  shall  promote  a  pension  and  place-bill,  enacting.  That  any 
member  who  receives  a  place,  pension,  contract,  lottery  ticket,  or 
any  other  emolument  whatsoever  from  the  Crown,  or  enjoys  profit  from 
any  such  place,  pension,  &c.  shall  not  only  vacate  his  seat,  but  be  ab- 
solutely ineligible  during  his  continuance  under  such  undue  influence. 

6.  You  shall  impeach  the  ministers  who  advised  the  violating  the  right 
of  the  freeholders  in  the  Middlesex  election;  and  the  military  murders  in 
St.  George's  Fields. 

7.  You  shall  make  strict  enquiry  into  the  conduct  of  Judges  touching 
Juries. 

8.  You  shall  make  strict  enquiry  into  the  application  of  the  public 
money. 

9.  You  shall  use  your  utmost  endeavours  to  have  the  resolution  of  the  , 
House  of  Commons  expunged,  by  which  the  magistrates  of  the  city  of 
London  were  arbitrarily  imprisoned,  for  strictly  adhering  to  their  charter 
and  their  oaths;  and  also  that  resolution  by  which  a  judicial  record  was 
erased  to  stop  the  course  of  justice. 

10,  You 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  177 

general  to  ask  themselves.  At  the  same  time,  Sir,  I  am  far 
from  meaning  to  undervalue  the  institution  of  this  society. 
On  the  contrary,  I  think  the  plan  was  admirable;  that  it  has 
already  been  of  signal  service  to  the  public,  and  may  be  of 
much  greater;  and  I  do  most  earnestly  wish,  that  you  would 
consider  of,  and  promote  a  plan  for  forming  constitutional 
clubs  all  through  the  kingdom.  A  measure  of  this  kind 
would  alarm  government  more,  and  be  of  more  essential 
service  to  the  cause,  than  any  thing  that  can  be  done  relative 
to  new-modelling  the  House  of  Commons.  You  see  then, 
that  my  objections  are  directed  to  the  particular  measure, 
not  to  the  general  institution. 

In  the  consideration  of  this  measure,  my  first  objection 
goes  to  the  declared  purpose  of  the  resolutions,  in  the  terms 
and  mode  in  which  you  have  described  it,  viz.  the  extermi- 
nation of  corruption.  In  my  opinion,  vou  grasp  at  the  im- 
possible, and  lose  the  really  attainable.  Without  plaguing  vou 
or  myself  with  a  logical  argument  upon  a  speculative  ques- 
tion, I  willingly  appeal  to  your  own  candour  and  judgment. 
Can  any  man  in  his  senses  affirm,  that,  as  things  are  now 
circumstanced  in  this  country,  it  is  possible  to  exterminate 
corruption?  Do  you  seriously  think  it  possible  to  carry 
through  both  houses  such  a  place-bill  as  you  describe  in  the 
fifth  article;  or,  supposing  it  carried,  that  it  would  not  be 
evaded?  When  you  talk  of  contracts  and  lottery  tickets,  do 
you  think  that  any  human  law  can  really  prevent  their  being 
distributed  and  accepted,  or  do  you  only  intend  to  mortifv 
Tczunshend  and  Harley?  In  short,  Sir,  would  you,  bona 
fide,  and  as  a  man  of  honour,  give  it  for  your  expectation 
and  opinion,  that  there  is  a  single  county  or  borough  in  the 

10.  You  shall  attend  to  the  grievances  of  our  fellow-subjects  in  Ireland, 
and  second  the  complaints  they  may  bring  to  the  throne. 

11.  You  shall  endeavour  to  restore  to  America  the  essential  right  of 
taxation,  by  representatives  of  tljeir  own  free  election;  repealing  thf* 
acts  passed  in  violation  of  that  right,  since  the  year  1763;  and  tin? 
universal  excise,  so  notoriously  incompatible  with  every  principle  of 
'British  liberty,  which  has  been  lately  substituted,  in  the  colonies,  for 
the  laws  of  customs. 

SAVAGE  BARRELL,  Esq.  Chairman. 

Vol.  I.  *  Z 


*  1 78  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

kingdom,  that  will  form  the  declaration  recommended  to 
them  in  these  resolutions,  and  enforce  it  upon  the  candi- 
dates? For  myself,  I  will  tell  you  freely,  not  what  I  thinky 
but  what  I  know;  the  resolutions  are  either  totally  neglected 
in  the  country,  or,  if  read,  are  laughed  at,  and  by  people 
who  mean  as  well  to  the  cause  as  any  of  us. 

With  regard  to  the  articles  taken  separately,  I  own  I  am 
concerned  to  see  that  the  great  condition,  which  ought  to  be 
the  sine  qua  non  of  parliamentary  qualification,  which  ought 
to  be  the  basis,  as  it  assuredly  will  be  the  only  support, 
of  every  barrier  raised  in  defence  of  the  constitution;  I 
mean  a  declaration  upon  oath  to  shorten  the  duration  of 
parliaments,  is  reduced  to  the  fourth  rank  in  the  esteem  of 
the  Society,  and,  even  in  that  place,  far  from  being  insisted 
on  with  firmness  and  vehemence,  seems  to  have  been  parti- 
cularly slighted  in  the  expression,  you  shall  endeavour  to 
restore  annual  parliaments.  Are  these  the  terms  which  men 
who  are  in  earnest  make  use  of,  when  the  salus  reipublicas  is 
at  stake!  I  expected  other  language  from  Mr.  Wilkes.  Be- 
sides my  objection  in  point  of  form,  I  disapprove  highly  of 
the  meaning  of  the  fourth  article,  as  it  stands: — Whenever 
the  question  shall  be  seriously  agitated,  I  will  endeavour 
(and  if  I  live  will  assuredly  attempt  it)  to  convince  the 
English  nation,  by  arguments,  to  my  understanding  un- 
answerable, that  they  ought  to  insist  upon  a  triennial,  and 
banish  the  idea  of  an  annual  parliament. 

Article  1.  The  terms  of  the  first  article  would  have  been 
very  proper  a  century  or  two  ago,  but  they  are  not  adapted 
to  the  present  state  of  the  constitution.  The  king  does  not 
act  directly  either  in  imposing  or  redressing  grievances.  We 
need  not  now  bribe  the  crown  to  do  us  justice;  and,  as  to  the 
refusal  of  supplies,  we  might  punish  ourselves  indeed,  but  it 
would  be  no  way  compulsory  upon  the  King.  With  respect 
to  his  civil  list,  he  is  already  independent,  or  might  be  so,  if 
he  has  common  sense,  or  common  resolution:  and  as  for 
refusing  to  vote  the  army  or  navy,  I  hope  we  shall  never  be 
mad  enough  to  try  an  experiment  every  way  so  hazardous. 
But,  in  fact,  the  effort  would  be  infinitely  too  great  for  the 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *1  79 

occasion.  All  we  want  is  an  honest  representative,  or  at 
least  such  a  one  as  will  have  some  respect  for  the  constituent 
body-  Formerly  the  House  of  Commons  were  compelled  to 
bargain  with  the  Sovereign.  At  present  they  may  prescribe 
their  own  conditions.  So  much,  in  general,  for  grievances: 
as  to  particular  grievances,  almost  all  those  we  complain  of 
are,  apparently,  the  acts  either  of  the  Lords  or  thf  Commons. 
The  appointment  of  unworthy  ministers,  is  not  strictly  a 
grievance,  (that  is,  a  legal  subject  of  complaint  to  the  King) 
until  those  ministers  are  arraigned  and  convicted  in  due 
course  of  law.  If,  after  that,  the  King  should  persist  in 
keeping  them  in  office,  it  would  be  a  grievance  in  the  strict, 
legal  sense  of  the  word,  and  would  undoubtedly  justify  re- 
bellion according  to  the  forms,  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the 
constitution.  I  am  far  from  condemning  the  late  addresses 
to  the  throne.  They  ought  to  be  incessantly  repeated.  The 
people,  by  the  singular  situation  of  their  affairs,  are  com- 
pelled to  do  the  duty  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Article  2.  I  object  to  the  second  article,  because  I  think 
that  multiplying  oaths  is  only  multiplying  perjury.  Besides 
this,  I  am  satisfied  that,  with  a  triennial  parliament  (and 
without  it  all  other  provisions  are  nugatory)  Mr.  Grenvill^s 
bill  is,  or  may  be  made,  a  sufficient  guard  against  any  gross, 
or  flagrant  offences  in  this  way. 

Article  3.  The  terms  of  the  third  article  are  too  loose  and 
indefinite  to  make  a  distinct  or  serious  impression.  That  the 
people  are  not  equally  and  fully  represented  is  unquestion- 
able. But  let  us  take  care  what  we  attempt.  We  may  de- 
molish the  venerable  fabric  we  intend  to  repair;  and  where 
is  the  strength  and  virtue  to  erect  a  better  in  its  stead?  I 
should  not,  for  my  own  part,  be  so  much  moved  at  the 
corrupt  and  odious  practices,  by  which  inconsiderable  men 
get  into  parliament;  nor  even  at  the  want  of  a  perfect  repre- 
sentation, (and  certainly  nothing  can  be  less  reconcileable  to 
the  theory,  than  the  present  practice  of  the  constitution)  if 
means  could  be  found  to  compel  such  men  to  do  their  duty 
(in  essentials  at  least)  when  they  are  in  parliament.  Now, 
Sir,  I  am  convinced  that,  if  shortening    the  duration  of 


#180  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

parliaments  (which  in  effect  is  keeping  the  representative 
under  the  rod  of  the  constituent)  be  not  made  the  basis  of 
our  new  parliamentary  jurisprudence,  other  checks  or  im- 
provements signify  nothing.  On  the  contrary,  if  this  be  made 
the  foundation,  other  measures  may  come  in  aid,  and,  as 
auxiliaries,  be  of  considerable  advantage.   Lord  Chatham's 
project,  for  instance,  of  increasing  the  number  of  Knights 
of  Shires,  appears  to  me  admirable,  and  the  moment  we  have 
obtained  a  triennial  parliament,  it  ought  to  be  tried.   As  tc 
cutting  away  the  rotten  boroughs,  I  am  as  much  offended 
as  any  man  at  seeing  so  many  of  them  under  the  direct  influ- 
ence of  the  crown,  or  at  the  disposal  of  private  persons,  yet  I 
own  I  have  both  doubts  and  apprehensions,  in  regard  to  the 
remedy  you  propose.   I  shall  be  charged,  perhaps,  with  an 
unusual  want  of  political  intrepidity,  when  I  honestly  confess 
to  you,  that  I  am  startled  at  the  idea  of  so  extensive  an 
amputation.  In  the  first  place,  I  question  the  power  de  jure 
of  the  legislature  to  disfranchise  a  number  of  boroughs  upon 
the  general  ground  of  improving  the  constitution.  There 
cannot  be  a  doctrine  more  fatal  to  the  liberty  and  property 
we  are  contending  for,  than  that  which  confounds  the  idea 
of  a  supreme  and  an  arbitrary  legislature.   I  need  not  point 
out  to  you,  the  fatal  purposes  to  which  it  has  been,  and  may 
be  applied.  If  we  are  sincere  in  the  political  creed  we  profess, 
there  are  many  things  which  we  ought  to  affirm,  cannot  be 
done  by  King,  Lords,  and  Commons.  Among  these  I  reckon 
the  disfranchising  a  borough   with  a  general  view  to  im- 
provement. I  consider  it  as  equivalent  to  robbing  the  parties 
concerned,  of  their  freehold,  of  their  birthright.  I  say,  that 
although  this  birthright  may  be  forfeited,  or  the  exercise  of 
it  suspended  in  particular  cases,  it  cannot  be  taken  away  by 
a  general  law,  for  any  real  or  pretended  purpose  of  improving 
the  constitution.  I  believe  there  is  no  power  in  this  country 
to  make  such  a  law.   Supposing  the  attempt  made,  I  am  per- 
suaded you  cannot  mean  that  either  King  or  Lords  should 
take  an  active  part  in  it.   A  bill,  which  only  touches  the 
representation  of  the  people,  must  originate  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  the  formation  and  mode  of  passing  it.  The 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *181 

exclusive  right  of  the  Commons  must  be  asserted  as  scru- 
pulously as  in  the  case  of  a  Money  Bill.  Now,  Sir,  I  should 
be  glad  to  know  by  what  kind  of  reasoning  it  can  be  proved, 
that  there  is  a  power  vested  in  the  representative  to  destroy 
his  immediate  constituent:  from  whence  could  he  possibly 
derive  it?  A  courtier,  I  know,  will  be  ready  enough  to  main- 
tain the  affirmative.  The  doctrine  suits  him  exactly,  because 
it  gives  an  unlimited  operation  to  the  influence  of  the  crown. 
But  we,  Mr.  Wilkes,  must  hold  a  different  language.  It  is  no 
answer  to  me  to  say,  that  the  bill,  when  it  passes  the  House 
of  Commons,  is  the  act  of  the  majority,  and  not  of  the 
representatives  of  the  particular  boroughs  concerned.  If  the 
majority  can  disfranchise  ten  boroughs,  why  not  twenty? 
Why  not  the  whole  kingdom?  Why  should  not  they  make 
their  own  seats  in  parliament  for  life?  When  the  Septennial 
Act  passed,  the  legislature  did  what  apparently  and  palpably 
they  had  no  power  to  do;  but  ihey  did  more  than  people  in 
general  were  aware  of;  they  disfranchised  the  whole  kingdom 
for  four  years.  For  argument's  sake,  I  will  now  suppose,  that 
the  expediency  of  the  measure,  and  the  power  of  parliament, 
were  unquestionable.  Still  you  will  find  an  insurmountable 
difficultv  in  the  execution.  When  all  your  instruments  of 
amputation  are  prepared — when  the  unhappy  patient  lies 
bound  at  your  feet,  without  the  possibility  of  resistance,  by 
what  infallible  rule  will  you  direct  the  operation?  When  you 
propose  to  cut  away  the  rotten  parts,  can  you  tell  us  what 
parts  are  perfectly  sound?   Are  there  any  certain  limits,  in 

fact  or  theory,  to  inform  you  at  what  point  you  must  stop 

at  what  point  the  mortification  ends?  To  a  man  so  capable  of 
observation  and  reflection  as  you  are,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
say  all  that  might  be  said  upon  the  subject.  Besides  that  I 
approve  highly  of  Lord  Chatham's  idea  of  "  infusing  a 
portion  of  new  health  into  the  constitution  to  enable  it  to 
bear  its  infirmities,"  (a  brilliant  expression,  and  full  of  in- 
trinsic wisdom,)  other  reasons  concur  in  persuading  me  to 
adopt  it.  I  have  no  objection  to  paying  him  such  compli- 
ments as  carry  a  condition  with  them,  and  either  bind  him 
firmly  to  the  cause,  or  become  the  bitterest  reproach  to  him 


*182  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

if  he  deserts  it.  Of  this  last  I  have  not  the  most  distant 
suspicion.  There  is  another  man,  indeed,  with  whose  conduct 
I  arn  not  so  completely  satisfied.  Yet  even  he,  I  think,  has 
not  resolution  enough  to  do  anv  thing  flagrantly  impudent 
in  the  face  of  his  country.  At  the  same  time  that  I  think  it 
good  policy  to  pay  those  compliments  to  Lord  Chatham, 
which,  in  truth,  he  has  nobly  deserved,  I  should  be  glad  to 
mortify  those  contemptible  creatures,  who  call  themselves 
noblemen,  whose  worthless  importance  depends  entirely 
upon  their  influence  over  boroughs,  which  cannot  be  safely 
diminished,  but  by  increasing  the  power  of  the  counties 
at  large.  Among  these  men,  I  cannot  but  distinguish  the 
meanest  of  the  human  species,  the  whole  race  of  the  Con* 
-ways.  I  have  but  one  word  to  add, — I  would  not  give  repre- 
sentatives to  those  great  trading  towns,  which  have  none  at 
present.  If  the  merchant  and  the  manufacturer  must  be  really 
represented,  let  them  become  freeholders  by  their  industry, 
and  let  the  representation  of  the  county  be  increased.  You 
will  find  the  interruption  of  business  in  those  towns,  by  the 
triennial  riot  and  cabals  of  an  election,  too  dear  a  price  for 
the  nugatory  privilege  of  sending  members  to  parliament. 

The  remaining  articles  will  not  require  a  long  discussion; 
— of  the  fourth  and  fifth  I  have  spoken  already. 

Article  6.  The  measures  recommended  in  the  sixth  are 
unexceptionable.  My  only  doubt  is,  how  can  an  act  apparent- 
ly done  bv  the  House  of  Commons  be  fixed,  by  sufficient 
legal  evidence,  upon  the  Duke  of  Grafton  or  Lord  North,  of 
whose  guilt  I  am  nevertheless  completely  satisfied.  As  for 
Lord  Weymouth  and  Lord  Barrington,  their  own  letters  are 
a  sufficient  ground  of  impeachment. 

Article  7.  The  seventh  article  is  also  very  proper  and 
access  TV.  The  impeachment  of  Lord  Mansfield,  upon  his 
own  paper,  is  indispensable.  Yet  suffer  me  to  guard  you 
against  the  seducing  idea  of  concurring  in  any  vote,  or 
encouraging  anv  bill,  which  may  pretend  to  ascertain,  while 
in  reality  it  limits,  the  constitutional  power  of  juries.  I  would 
hav  their  riHht,  to  return  a  general  verdict  in  all  casv-s 
whatsoever,  considered  as  a  part  of  the  constitution,  funda- 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *igg 

mental,  sacred,  and  no  more  questionable  by  the  legislature, 
than  whether  the  government  of  the  country  shall  be  by 
King,  Lords,  and  Commons.  Upon  this  point,  an  Enacting 
Bill  would  be  pernicious;  a  Declaratory  Bill,  to  say  the  best 
of  it,  useless. 

Article  8.  I  think  the  eighth  article  would  be  more  pro- 
perly expressed  thus:  You  shall  grant  no  money,  unless  for 
services  known  to,  and  approved  of,  by  Parliament.  In  gene- 
ral the  supplies  are  appropriated,  and  cannot  easily  be  mis- 
applied. The  House  of  Commons  are  indeed  too  ready  in 
granting  large  sums  under  the  head  of  extraordinaries  in- 
curred, and  not  provided  for.  But  the  accounts  lie  before 
them; — it  is  their  own  fault  if  they  do  not  examine  them. 
The  manner  in  which  the  late  debt  upon  the  civil  list  was 
pretended  to  be  incurred,  and  really  paid,  demands  a  par- 
ticular examination.  Never  was  there  a  more  impudent  out- 
rage offered  to  a  patient  people. 

Article  9.  The  ninth  is  indispensable;  but  I  think  the 
matter  of  it  rather  fit  for  instruction  than  for  the  declara- 
tion you  have  in  view.  I  am  very  apprehensive  of  clogging 
the  declaration,  and  making  it  too  long. 

Articles  10  and  11.  In  the  tenth  and  eleventh  you  are  very 
civil  to  Ireland  and  America;  and  if  you  mean  nothing  but 
ostentation,  it  may  possibly  answer  your  purpose.  Your  care 
of  Ireland  is  much  to  be  commended.  But,  I  think,  in  good 
policy,  you  may  as  well  complete  a  reformation  at  home, 
before  you  attempt  to  carry  your  improvements  to  such  a 
distance.  Clearing  the  fountain  is  the  best  and  shortest  way  to 
purify  the  stream.  As  to  taxing  the  Americans  by  their  own 
representatives,  I  confess  I  do  not  perfectly  understand  you. 
If  you  propose  that,  in  the  article  of  taxation,  the}'  should 
hereafter  be  left  to  the  authority  of  their  respective  assem- 
blies, I  must  own  I  think  you  had  no  business  to  revive  a 
question  which  should,  and  probably  would,  have  lain  dor- 
mant for  ever.  If  you  mean  that  the  Americans  should  be 
authorized  to  send  their  representatives  to  the  British  Par- 
liament, I  shall  be  contented  with  referring  you  to  what 


*184  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

Air.  Burke  has  said  upon  thi*  subject,  and  will  not  venture  to 
add  any  thing  of  my  own,  for  fear  of  discovering  an  offensive 
disregard  of  your  opinion.  Since  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act,  I  know  of  no  Acts  tending  to  tax  the  Americans,  except 
that  which  creates  the  tea  duty;  and  even  that  can  hardly  be 
called  internal.  Yet  it  ought  to  be  repealed,  as  an  impolitic 
Act,  not  as  an  oppressive  one.  It  preserves  the  contention 
between  the  mother  country  and  the  colonies,  when  every- 
thing worth  contending  for  is  in  reality  given  up.  When  this 
Act  is  repealed,  I  presume  you  will  tarn  your  thoughts  to 
the  postage  of  letters;  a  tax  imposed  by  authority  of  parlia- 
ment, and  levied  in  the  very  heart  of  the  colonies.  I  am  not 
sufficiently  informed  upon  the  subject  of  that  excise,  which 
you  say  is  substituted  in  North  America  to  the  laws  of 
customs,  to  deliver  such  an  opinion  upon  it  as  I  would  abide 
by.  Yet  I  can  easily  comprehend,  that  admitting  the  necessity 
of  raising  a  revenue  for  the  support  of  government  there, 
any  other  revenue  laws,  but  those  of  excise,  would  be  nuga- 
tory in  such  a  country  as  America.  I  say  this  with  great 
diffidence  as  to  the  point  in  question,  and  with  a  positive  pro- 
test against  any  conclusion  from  America  to  Great  Britain. 

If  these  observations  shall  appear  to  deserve  the  attention 
of  the  Society,  it  is  for  them  to  consider  what  use  may  be 
made  of  them.  I  know  how  difficult  and  irksome  it  is  to 
tread  back  the  steps  we  have  taken;  yet,  if  any  part  of  what 
I  have  submitted  to  you  carries  reason  and  conviction  with 
it,  I  hope  that  no  false  shame  will  influence  our  friends  at 
the  London  Tavern. 

I  do  not  deny  that  I  expect  my  opinions  upon  these  points 
should  have  some  degree  of  weight  with  you.  I  have  served 
Mr.  Wilkes,  and  am  still  capable  of  serving  him.  I  have 
faithfully  served  the  public,  without  the  possibility  of  a 
personal  advantage.  As  Junius,  I  can  never  expect  to  be 
rewarded. — The  secret  is  too  important  to  be  committed  to 
any  great  man's  discretion.  If  views  of  interest  or  ambition 
could  tempt  me  to  betray  my  own  secret,  how  could  I 
flatter  myself  that  the  man  I  trusted  would  not  act  upon  the 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  #185 

same  principles,  and  sacrifice  me  at  once  to  the  King'*  curi- 
osity and  resentment?  Speaking  therefore  as  a  disinterested 
man,  I  have  a  claim  to  your  attention.  Let  my  opinions  be 
fairly  examined. 

JUNIUS. 

P.  S.  As  you  will  probably  never  hear  from  me  again,  I 
will  not  omit  this  opportunity  of  observing  to  you,  that  I  am 
not  properly  supported  in  the  newspapers.  One  would  think 
that  all  the  fools  were  of  the  other  side  of  the  question.  As 
to  myself  it  is  of  little  moment.  I  can  brush  away  the  swarm- 
ing insects  whenever  I  think  proper.  But  it  is  bad  policy  to 
let  it  appear,  in  any  instance,  that  we  have  not  numbers  as 
well  as  justice  of  our  side.  I  wish  you  would  contrive  that  the 
receipt  of  this  letter  and  my  last,  might  be  barely  acknow- 
ledged by  a  hint  in  the  Public  Advertiser. 


No.  67. 
Prince's  Court,  Monday,  Sept.  9,  1771. 

Mr.  Wilkes  had  the  honour  of  receiving  from  the  same 
gentleman  two  excellent  letters  on  important  subjects,  one 
dated  Aug.  21st,  the  other  Sept.  7th.  He  begs  the  favour  of 
the  author  to  prescribe  the  mode  of  Mr.  Wilkes's  communi- 
cating his  answer1. 


No.  68. 

10  Sept.  1771. 
You  may  intrust  Woodfall  with  a  letter  for  me.  Leave  the 

rest  to  his  management. 

I  expect  that  you  will  not  enter  into  any  explanations  with 

him  whatsoever2. 

1  This  note  was  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser  on  the  day  following 
its  date. 

2  Mr.  Wilkes  has  written  on  it  "  Received  by  the  Penny  Post" 

Vol.  I.  *  2  A 


*186  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 


No.  69. 

TO  JUNIUS. 
Si  a,  Sept.  12,  1771. 

I  do  not  mean  to  indulge  the  impertinent  curiosity  of  find- 
ing out  the  most  important  secret  of  our  times,  the  author 
of  Junius.  I  will  not  attempt  with  profane  hands  to  tear  the 
sacred  veil  of  the  sanctuary;  I  am  disposed  with  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Attica,  to  erect  an  altar  to  the  unknoxvn  god  of  our 
political  idolatry,  and  will  be  content  to  worship  him  in 
clouds  and  darkness. 

This  very  circumstance,  however,  deeply  embarrasses  me. 
The  first  letter  with  which  I  was  honoured  by  Junius,  called 
for  a  thousand  anecdotes  of  Crosby,  Sawbridge,  and  Towns- 
rund,  too  tedious,  too  minute,  to  throw  upon  paper,  which 
yet  must  be  acted  upon,  and  as  he  well  knows,  mark  the  cha- 
racter of  men.  Junius  has  in  my  idea  too  favourable  senti- 
ments of  Sawbridge.  I  allow  him  honest,  but  think  he  has 
more  mulishness  than  understanding,  more  understanding 
than  candour.  He  is  become  the  absolute  dupe  of  Malagri- 
da's  gang.  He  has  declared,  that  if  he  was  chosen  mayor  this 
3'ear,  he  would  not  serve  the  office,  but  fine,  because  Towns- 
hend  ought  to  be  mayor.  Such  a  declaration  is  certain,  and 
in  my  opinion  it  borders  on  insanity.  To  me  Sawbridge  com- 
plained the  last  year  that  his  sheriffalty  passed  in  a  continual 
secret  cabal  of  Beckford,  Townshend  and  Home,  without 
the  communication  of  any  thing  to  him  till  the  moment  of 
execution.  Sawbridge  has  openly  acted  against  us.  Our 
troops  will  not  be  brought  at  present  to  fight  his  battles. 
Mrs.  Macauley  has  warmly  espoused  the  common  cause, 
and  severely  condemns  her  brother.  Any  overtures  to  Saw- 
brdge,  I  believe,  would  have  been  rejected,  perhaps  treated 
with  contempt,  by  not  the  best  bred  man  in  the  island.  How 
could  I  begin  a  negotiation  when  I  was  already  pledged  to 
Crosby,  who  has  fed  himself  with  the  hope  of  that  and  the 
membership,  by  which  I  overcame  his  natural  timidity? 
Junius  sees  the  confidence  I  place  in  him.  Could  there  be 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *1S7 

a  prospect  of  any  cordiality  between  Sawbridge  and  the  pa- 
pular party,  at  least  so  soon  as  his  mayoralty?  I  should  fear 
the  Mansion  House  would  be  besieged,  and  taken  by  the 
banditti  of  the  Shelburnes.  But  what  I  am  sure  will  be  de- 
cisive to  Junius,  I  was  engaged  to  Crosby  before  I  received 
the  letter  of  Aug.  21,  and  I  have  not  since  found  in  him  the 
least  inclination  to  yield  the  favourite  point.  The  member- 
ship of  the  city  is  a  security  to  the  public  for  his  steadiness 
in  the  cause.  Surely  then  it  would  have  been  imprudent  to 
have  wished  a  change.  My  duty  to  the  people  only  makes 
me  form  a  wish  for  Crosby.  To  make  Crosby  mayor,  it  is 
necessary  to  return  to  the  court  of  aldermen  another  man  so 
obnoxious  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  elect  him.  Bridgen 
I  take  to  be  this  man.  While  he  presided  in  the  city  he  treat- 
ed them  with  insolence,  was  exceedingly  rude  and  scurrilous 
to  them  personally,  starved  them  at  the  few  entertainments 
he  gave,  and  pocketed  the  city  cash.  As  he  has  always  voted 
on  the  popular  side,  we  are  justified  to  the  livery  in  the  re- 
commendation c-f  him,  and  the  rest  will  be  guessed.  Crosby 
will  probably  be  the  locum  tenens  of  Bridgen,  if  Bridgen  13 
elected.  I  wrote  the  letter  on  this  subject  in  the  Public  Ad- 
vertiser of  S.-pt.  5.  The  argument  there  is  specious,  although 
my  private  opinion  is,  the  House  of  Commons  will  not  again 
fall  into  that  snare.  Into  another  I  am  satisfied  they  will. 
The  House  of  Lords  too,  will,  I  think,  furnish  a  most  inter- 
esting scene,  in  consequence  of  the  powers  they  usurp,  and 
the  sheriff  means  the  attack.  I  wish  this  great  business,  as  I 
have  projected  it,  could  be  unravelled  in  a  letter  or  two  to 
Junius,  but  the  detail  is  too  long  and  intricate.  How  greatly 
is  it  to  be  lamented  that  the  few  real  friends  of  the  public 
have  so  little  communication  of  counsels,  so  few  and  only 
distant  means  of  a  reserved  intercourse! 

I  have  no  where  met  with  more  excellent  and  abundant 
political  matter  than  in  the  letter  of  Junius  respecting  the 
Bill  of  Rights.  He  ought  to  know  from  me,  that  the  Ame- 
rican Dr.  Lee  (the  Gazetteer's  Junius  Americanus)  was  the 
author  of  the  too  long  Preamble,  Articles,  &c.  They  were, 
indeed,  submitted  to  me  on  the  morning  of  the  day  on  which. 


#188  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

they  passed,  but  I  made  few  corrections.  I  disliked  the  ex- 
trtme  verbiage  of  every  part,  and  wished  the  whole  put 
again  on  the  anvil.  Sir  Joseph  Mawbey  and  I  were  of  opi- 
nion to  adjourn  the  business  for  a  reconsideration,  but  the 
majority  of  the  members  were  too  impatient  to  have  some- 
thing go  forth  in  their  names  to  the  public.  It  would  have 
been  highly  imprudent  in  Sir  Joseph  or  me  to  thwart  them 
in  so  favourite  a  point,  and  the  substance  I  indeed  greatly 
approve.  At  all  times  I  hate  taking  in  other  people's  foul 
linen  to  wash.  The  Society  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  have  been 
called  my  committee,  and  it  has  been  said  that  they  were 
governed  entirely  by  me.  This  has  spread  a  jealousy  even 
among  my  friends.  I  was  therefore  necessitated  to  act  the 
most  cautious  and  prudent  part.  You  cannot  always  do  all 
the  good  vou  wish,  and  you  are  sometimes  reduced  to  the 
necessitv  of  yielding  in  a  particular  moment  to  conciliate  the 
doubtful,  the  peevish,  or  the  refractory.  Junius  may  be 
assured  that  I  will  warmly  recommend  the  formation  of  con- 
stitutional dubs  in  several  parts  of  the  kingdom.  I  am  satis- 
fied that  nothing  would  more  alarm  the  ministry.  I  agree 
that  the  shortening  the  duration  of  parliaments  is  the  first 
and  most  important  of  all  considerations,  without  which  all 
th  rest  would  be  nugatory;  but  I  am  unhappy  to  differ  with 
Junius  in  so  essential  a  point  as  that  of  triennial  parlia- 
ments. They  are  inadequate  to  the  cure  of  destroying  de- 
pendence in  the  members  on  the  crown.  They  only  lessen, 
not  root  out,  corruption,  and  only  reduce  the  purchase  mo- 
ney for  an  annuity  of  three  instead  of  seven  years.  I  have  a 
thousand  arguments  against  triennial  ant!  in  favour  of  annual 
parliaments.  The  question  was  fairly  agitated  at  the  London 
Tavern,  and  several  of  vour  friends  owned  that  thev  were 
convinced.  The  subject  is  too  copious  for  a  letter.  I  hope 
to  read  Junius's  mature  and  deliberate  thoughts  on  this 
subject.  I  own  that  in  the  House  of  Commons  sound  policy 
would  rather  favour  triennial  parliaments  as  the  necessary 
rood  to  annual,  but  the  constitutional  question  is  different. 

I  am  sorry  likewise  to  difkr  with  Junius  as  to  the  power 
de  mre  oi  the  legislature  to  disfranchise  any  boroughs.  How 


JUNIUS  AND  Mh.  WILKES.  #13« 

originated  the  right,  and  why  was  it  granted?  Old  Sarum 
and  Gatton,  for  instance,  were  populous  places,  when  the 
right  of  representation  was  first  given  them.  They  are  now 
desolate,  and  therefore  in  even  thing  should  return  to  their 
former  state.  A  barren  mountain  or  a  single  farm-house  can 
have  no  representation  in  parliament.  I  exceedingly  approve 
Lord  Chatham's  idea  of  increasing  the  number  of  Knights 
of  Shires.  If  parliaments  are  not  annual,  I  should  not  dis- 
approve of  a  third  part  ol  the  legislative  body  going  out  every 
year  by  ballot,  and  of  consequence  an  annual  re-election  in 
part. 

I  am  so  much  harassed  with  business  at  present,  that  I 
have  not  time  to  mention  many  particulars  of  importance, 
and  these  three  days  I  have  had  the  shivering  fits  of  a  slow 
lurking  fever,  a  strange  disorder  for  Wilkes,  which  makes 
Writing  painful  to  me.  1  could  plunge  the  patriot  dagger  in 
the  heart  of  the  tyrant  of  mj  country,. but  my  hand  would 
now  tremble  in  doing  it.  In  general  I  enjoy  settled  con- 
firmed health,  to  which  I  have  for  some  years  paid  great 
attention,  chiefly  from  public  views. 

I  am  satisfied  that  Junius  now  means  me  well,  and  I  wish 
to  merit  more  than  his  regard,  his  friendship.  He  has  pour- 
ed balm  into  my  wounds,  the  detpest  of  u  hich  I  sigh,  when 
I  recollect,  were  made  by  that  now  friendly  hand.  I  am 
always  ready  to  kiss  his  rod,  but  I  hope  its  destination  is 
changed,  and  that  it  will  never  again  iall  as  heavy  upon  me 
as  towards  the  conclusion  of  the  year  1  769,  when  Thurlow 
said  sneeringly,  the  government  prosecuted  Junius  out  of 
compliment  to  Wilkes.  I  warmly  wish  Junius  my  friend. 
As  a  public  man  I  think  myself  secure  of  his  support,  for  I 
will  only  depend  on  popular  favour,  and  pursue  only  the 
true  constitutional  points  of  liberty.  As  a  private  person  I 
figure  to  myself  that  Junius  is  as  amiable  in  the  private  as 
he  is  great  in  the  public  walk  of  life.  I  now  live  very  much 
at  home,  happy  in  the  elegant  society  of  a  sensible  daughter, 
whom  Junius  has  noticed  in  the  most  obliging  manner. 

I  have  not  had  a  moment's  conversation  with  Woodfall 
on  the  subject  of  our  correspondence,  nor  did  I  mean  to 


*190  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

mention  it  to  him.  All  he  can  guess,  will  be  from  the  fol- 
lowing card,  which  I  shall  send  by  my  servant  with  this  let- 
ter. "  Mr.  Wilkes  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr.  Wood- 
fall,  and  desires  him  to  direct  and  forward  the  enclosed  to 
Junius."  After  the  first  letter  of  Junius  to  me,  I  did  not 
go  to  Woodfall  to  pry  into  a  secret  I  had  no  right  to  know. 
The  letter  itself  bore  the  stamp  of  Jove.  I  was  neither  doubt- 
ing nor  impertinent.  I  wish  to  comply  with  every  direction 
of  Junius,  to  profit  by  his  hints,  and  to  have  the  permission 
of  writing  to  him  on  an\  important  occasion.  I  desire  to  as- 
sure him,  that  in  all  great  public  concerns,  I  am  perfectly 
free  from  every  personality  either  of  dislike  or  affection.  The 
Stoic  apathy  is  then  really  mine. 

Lord  Chatham  said  to  me  ten  years  ago,  u  *****  * 
is  the  falsest  hypocrite  in  Europe."  I  must  hate  the  man  as 
much  as  even  Junius  can,  for  through  this  whole  reign 
almost  it  has  been  *********  versus  Wilkes.  This 
conduct  will  probably  make  it  Wilkes  versus  ****** 
*  *  *.  Junius  must  imagine  that  no  man  in  the  island  feels 
what  he  writes  on  that  occasion  more  than  I  do. 

This  letter  is  an  emanation  of  the  heart,  not  an  effort  of 
the  head.  It  claims  attention  from  the  honest  zeal  and  sin- 
cerity of  the  writer,  whose  affection  for  his  country  will  end 
only  with  his  life. 

JOHN  WILKES. 

No.  70. 

TO  JOHN  WILKES,  ESQ.1. 
Sir,  London,  18th  September,  1771. 

Your  letter  of  the  12th  instant  was  carefully  conveyed  to 
me.  I  am  much  flattered,  as  you  politely  intended  I  should 
be,  with  the  worship  you  are  pleased  to  pay  to  the  Unknown 
God  of  politics.  I  find  I  am  treated  as  other  Gods  usually 
are  by  their  votaries,  with  sacrifice  and  ceremony  in  abun- 
dance, and  very  little  obedience.  The  profession  of  )our 

1  Written  on  by  him,  "  Received  Monday  afternoon,  September  18, 
1771" 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *191 

faith  is  unexceptionable;  but  I  am  a  modest  deity,  and 
should  be  full  as  well  satisfied  with  good  works  and  mo- 
rality. 

There  is  a  rule  in  business  that  would  save  much  time 
if  it  were  generally  adopted.  A  question  once  decided  is 
no  longer  a  subject  of  argument.  You  have  taken  your 
resolution  about  the  mayoralty.  What  I  have  now  to  say  is 
not  meant  to  alter  it,  but,  in  perfect  good  humour,  to  guard 
you  against  some  inconveniences,  which  may  attend  the 
execution.  It  is  your  own  affair,  and  though  I  still  think 
you  have  chosen  injudiciously,  both  for  yourself  and  for  the 
public,  I  have  no  right  to  find  fault  or  to  tease  you  with  re- 
flections, which  cannot  divert  you  from  your  purpose. 

I  cannot  comprehend  the  reason  of  Mr.  Crosby's  eagerness 
to  be  Lord  Mayor,  unlets  he  proposes  to  disgrace  the  office 
and  himself  by  pocketing  the  salary.  In  that  case  he  will 
create  a  disgust  among  the  citizens,  of  which  you  and  your 
party  will  feel  the  bad  effects,  and  as  for  himself  he  may  bid 
adieu  to  all  hopes  of  being  returned  for  the  city.  That 
he  should  live  with  unusual  splendour  is  essentially  your 
interest  and  his  own;  and  even  then  I  do  not  perceive  that 
his  merits  are  so  distinguished  as  to  intitle  him  to  a  double 
reward.  Of  the  dignity  or  authority  of  a  Locum  tenens,  I 
know  nothing;  nor  can  I  conceive  what  credit  Mr.  Crosby  is 
likely  to  derive  from  representing  Mr.  Bridgen.  But  suppose 
Bridgen  should  be  lord  major,  and  should  keep  his  word  in 
appointing  Crosby  his  lieutenant,  I  should  be  glad  to  know, 
who  is  to  support  the  expense  and  dignity  of  the  office?  It 
may  suit  such  a  fellow  as  Bridgen  to  shut  up  the  Mansion- 
house,  but  I  promise  you  his  economy  will  be  of  no  service 
to  Mr.  Wilkes.  If  you  make  him  mayor,  you  will  be  made 
answerable  for  his  conduct;  and  if  he  and  Crosby  be  return- 
ed, you  may  depend  upon  it  the  court  of  aldermen  will 
choose  him. 

With  regard  to  Mr.  Sawbridge,  since  I  cannot  prevail 
with  you  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  closer  union  between 
you,  by  any  positive  sacrifice  in  his  favour,  at  least  let  me 
entreat  you  to  ebserve  a  moderate  and  guarded  conduct 


#192  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

towards  him.  I  should  be  much  concerned  to  see  his 
character  traduced,  or  his  person  insulted.  He  is  not  a 
dupe  to  any  set  of  men  whatsoever,  nor  do  I  think  he 
ha?  taken  any  violent  or  decided  part  against  you. — Yet 
to  be  excluded  from  those  honours  which  are  the  only  re- 
wards he  pretends  to,  and  to  which  he  is  so  justly  entitled, 
and  to  see  them  bestowed  upon  such  men  as  Crosby  and 
Bridgen,  is  enough  to  excite  and  justify  his  resentment.  All 
this,  Sir,  is  matter  of  convenience,  which  I  hope  you  will 
consider.  There  is  another  point,  upon  which  I  must  be 
much  more  serious  and  earnest  with  you.  You  seem  to 
have  no  anxiety  or  apprehension  but  lest  the  friends  of 
Lord  Shelburne  should  get  possession  of  the  Mansion- 
house.  In  my  opinion  thev  have  no  chance  of  success  what- 
soever. The  real  danger  is  from  the  interest  of  government; 
from  Harley,  and  the  Tories. — If  while  you  are  employed 
in  counteracting  Mr.  Townshend,  a  ministerial  alderman 
should  be  returned,  you  will  have  ruined  the  cause. — You 
will  have  ruined  yourself,  and  for  ever.  To  say  that  Junius 
could  never  forgive  you  is  nothing1; — you  could  never  for- 
give yourself. — Junius  from  that  moment  will  be  compelled 
to  consider  you  as  a  man  who  has  sacrificed  the  public  to 
views  which  were  every  way  unworthy  of  you.  If  then, 
upon  a  fair  canvass  of  the  livery,  you  should  see  a  probabi- 
lity that  Bridgen  may  not  be  returned,  let  that  point  be 
given  up  at  once,  and  let  Sawbrhdge  be  returned  with 
Crosby; — a  more  likely  way  in  my  judgment  to  make  Crosby 
lord  mayor. 

Nothing  can  do  you  greater  honour,  nor  be  of  greater 
benefit  to  the  community,  than  your  intended  attack  upon  the 
unconstitutional  powers  assumed  by  the  House  of  Lords.  You 
have  my  warmest  applause;  and  if  I  can  assist,  command  my 
assistance.  The  arbitrary  power  of  fine  and  imprisonment, 
assumed  by  these  men,  would  be  a  disgrace  to  any  form  of 
legal  government  not  purely  aristocratical. — Directly,  it 
invadi  s  the  laws,  indirectly,  it  saps  the  constitution.  Natu- 
rally phlegmatic,  these  questions  warm  me. — I  envy  you  the 

1  See  note  to  Private  Letters,  No.  56,  ame  p.  *156. 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *193 

laurels  you  will  acquire. — Banish  the  thought  that  Junius 
can  make  a  dishonourable  or  an  imprudent  use  of  the  confi- 
dence you  repose  in  him.  When  you  have  leisure,  communi- 
cate your  plan  to  me,  that  I  may  have  time  to  examine  it, 
and  to  consider  what  part  I  can  act  with  the  greatest  advan- 
tage to  the  cause.  The  constitutional  argument  is  obvious. 
I  wish  you  to  point  out  to  me  where  you  think  the  force  of 
the  formal  legal  argument  lies.  In  pursuing  such  inquiries  I 
lie  under  a  singular  disadvantage.  Not  venturing  to  consult 
those  who  are  qualified  to  inform  me,  I  am  forced  to  collect 
every  thing  from  books  or  common  conversation.  The  pains 
I  took  with  that  paper  upon  privilege,  were  greater  than  I 
can  express  to  you.  Yet  after  I  had  blinded  myself  with 
poring  over  journals,  debates,  and  parliamentary  history, 
I  was  at  last  obliged  to  hazard  a  bold  assertion,  which  I  am 
now  convinced  is  true  (as  I  really  then  thought  it),  because 
it  has  not  been  disproved  or  disputed. — There  is  this  ma- 
terial difference  upon  the  face  of  the  two  questions.  We  can 
clearly  shew  a  time  when  the  lower  house  had  not  an  unli- 
mited power  of  commitment  for  breach  of  privilege.  Whereas 
I  fear  we  shall  not  have  the  same  advantage  over  the  House 
of  Lords.  It  is  not  that  precedents  have  any  weight  with 
me  in  opposition  to  principles;  but  I  know  they  weigh  with 
the  multitude. 

My  opinion  of  the  several  articles  of  the  proposed  decla- 
ration remains  unaltered.  I  cannot  pretend  to  answer  those 
arguments  in  favour  of  annual  parliaments,  by  which  you 
say  the  friends  of  Junius  were  convinced.  The  question 
is  not  what  is  best  in  theory  (for  there  I  should  undoubtedly 
agree  with  you),  but  what  is  most  expedient  in  practice. 
You  labour  to  carry  the  constitution  to  a  point  of  perfection 
which  it  can  never  reach  to,  or  at  which  it  cannot  long 
be  stationary.  In  this  idea  I  think  I  see  the  mistake  of  a 
speculative  man,  who  is  either  not  conversant  with  the 
world,  or  not  sufficiently  persuaded  of  the  necessity  of 
taking  things  as  they  are.  The  objection  drawn  from  the 
purchase  of  an  annuity  for  three  years  instead  of  seven,  is 
defective,  because  it  applies  in  the  same  proportion  to  an 

Vol.  I.'  *2B 


#194  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

annuity  for  one  year.  This  is  not  the  question.  The  point  is 
to  keep  the  representative  as  much  under  the  check  and 
controul  of  the  constituent,  as  can  be  done,  consistently 
with  other  great  and  essential  objects.  But  without  entering 
farther  into  the  debate,  I  would  advise,  that  this  part  of  the 
declaration  be  expressed  in  general  terms;  viz.  to  shorten 
the  duration  of  parliaments.  This  mediating  expedient  will, 
for  the  present,  take  in  both  opinions,  and  leave  open  the 
quantum  of  time  to  a  future  discussion. 

In  answer  to  a  general  argument,  by  which  the  uncon- 
troulable  right  of  the  people  to  form  the  third  part  of  the 
legislature  is  defended,  you  urge  against  me  two  gross 
cases,  which  undoubtedly  call  for  correction.  These  cases, 
you  may  believe,  did  not  escape  me,  and  by  the  bye,  admit 
of  a  particular  answer.  But  it  is  not  treating  me  fairly  to 
oppose  general  principles  with  particular  abuses.  It  is  not 
in  human  policy  to  form  an  institution  from  which  no  possi- 
ble inconvenience  shall  arise.  I  did  not  pretend  to  deliver  a 
doctrine,  to  which  there  could  be  no  possible  objection.  We 
are  to  choose  between  better  and  worse.  Let  us  come  fairly 
to  the  point. — Whether  is  it  safer  to  deny  the  legislature 
a  power  of  disfranchising  all  the  electors  of  a  borough; 
(which,  if  denied,  entails  a  number  of  rotten  boroughs  upon 
the  constitution) — or  to  admit  the  power,  and  so  leave  it 
with  the  legislature  to  disfranchise  ad  arbitriwn  every  bo- 
rough and  county  in  the  kingdom.  If  you  deny  the  conse- 
quence, it  will  be  incumbent  upon  you  to  prove  by  positive 
reasoning  that  a  power  which  holds  in  the  case  of  Aylesbury 
or  New  Shoreham,  does  not  hold  in  the  case  of  York,  Lon- 
don, or  Middlesex.  To  this  question  I  desire  a  direct  answer; 
and  when  we  have  fixed  our  principles  we  may  regularly 
descend  to  the  detail.  The  case  of  Gatton  and  Old  Sarum 
do  not  embarrass  me.  Their  right  to  return  members  to 
parliament  has  neither  fact  nor  theory  to  support  it. — u  They 
have,  bona  fide,  no  electors."  Consequently  there  is  no  man 
to  be  dispossessed  of  his  freehold.  No  man  to  be  disfran- 
chised of  his  right  of  election.  At  the  worst,  supposing  the 
annihilation  of  these  pretended  boroughs  could  no  way  be 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *195 

reconciled  to  my  own  principles,  I  shall  only  say,  give  me  a 
healthy,  vigorous  constitution,  and  I  shall  hardly  consult 
my  looking-glass  to  discover  a  blemish  upon  my  skin. 

You  ask  me,  from  whence  did  the  right  originate,  and 
for  what  purpose  was  it  granted?  I  do  not  see  the  tendency 
of  these  questions,  but  I  answer  them  without  scruple:  *  In 
general  it  arose  from  the  King's  writs,  and  it  was  granted 
with  a  view  to  balance  the  power  of  the  nobility,  and  to  ob- 
tain aids  from  the  people.' — But  without  looking  back  to  an 
obscure  antiquity,  from  which  no  certain  information  can 
be  collected,  you  will  find  that  the  laws  of  England  have 
much  greater  regard  to  possession  (of  a  certain  length)  than 
to  any  other  title  wi  atsoever;  and  that  in  every  kind  of 
property  which  savours  of  the  reality  this  doctrine  is  most 
wisely  the  basis  of  our  English  jurisprudence.  Though  I  use 
the  terms  of  art,  do  not  injure  me  so  much  as  to  suspect  I  am 
a  lawyer. — I  had  as  lief  be  a  Scotchman. — It  is  the  encou- 
ragement given  to  disputes  about  titles,  which  has  supported 
that  iniquitous  profession  at  the  expense  of  the  community. 
— As  to  this  whole  argument  about  rotten  boroughs,  if  I 
seem  zealous  in  supporting  my  opinion,  it  is  not  from  a  con- 
ception that  the  constitution  cannot  possibly  be  relieved  from 
them — I  mean  only  to  reconcile  )  ou  to  an  evil  which  cannot 
safely  be  removed. 

Now,  Mr.  Wilkes,  I  shall  deal  very  plainly  with  you. 
The  subject  of  my  first  letter  was  private  and  personal,  and 
I  am  content  it  should  be  forgotten.  Your  letter  to  me  is  also 
sacred.  But  my  second  letter  is  of  public  import,  and  must 
not  be  suppressed.  I  did  not  mean  that  it  should  be  buried 
in  Prince's  Court.  It  would  be  unfair  to  embarrass  you  with 
a  new  question,  while  your  city  election  is  depending.  But  if 
I  perceive  that  within  a  reasonable  time  after  that  business 
is  concluded,  no  steps  are  taken  with  the  Bill  of  Rights  to 
form  a  new,  short,  and  rational  declaration  (whether  by  lay- 
ing my  letter  before  the  society,  or  by  any  other  mode  that 
you  shall  think  adviseable),  I  shall  hold  myself  obliged,  by 
a  duty  paramount  to  all  other  considerations,  to  institute  an 
amicable  suit  against  the  society  before  the  tribunal  of  the 


*196  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

public.  Without  asperity,  without  petulance  or  disrespect,  I 
propose  to  publish  the  second  letter,  and  to  answer  or  submit 
to  argument.  The  necessity  of  taking  this  step  will  indeed 
give  me  pain,  for  I  well  know  that  differences  between  the 
advocates  are  of  no  service  to  the  cause.  But  the  lives  of  the 
best  of  us  are  spent  in  choosing  between  evils. — As  to  you, 
Sir,  you  may  as  well  take  the  trouble  of  directing  that  society, 
since  whatever  they  do  is  placed  to  your  account. 

The  domestic  society  you  speak  of  is  much  to  be  envied. 
I  fancy  I  should  like  it  still  better  than  you  do.  I  too  am  no 
enemy  to  good  fellowship,  and  have  often  cursed  that  canting 
parson  for  wishing  to  deny  you  your  claret.  It  is  for  him, 
and  men  like  him,  to  beware  of  intoxication.  Though  I  do 
not  place  the  little  pleasures  of  life  in  competition  with  the 
glorious  business  of  instructing  and  directing  the  people,  yet 
I  see  no  reason  why  a  wise  man  may  not  unite  the  public 
virtues  of  Cato,  with  the  indulgence  of  Epicurus. 

Continue  careful  of  your  health.  Your  head  is  too  useful 
to  be  spared,  and  your  hand  may  be  wanted.  Think  no  more 
of  what  is  past.  You  did  not  then  stand  so  well  in  my  opi- 
nion; and  it  was  necessary  to  the  plan  of  that  letter  to  rate 
you  lower  than  you  deserved.  The  wound  is  curable,  and 
the  scar  shall  be  no  disgrace  to  you. 

I  willingly  accept  of  as  much  of  your  friendship  as  you 
can  impart,  to  a  man  whom  you  will  assuredly  never  know. 
Besides  every  personal  consideration,  if  I  were  known,  I 
could  no  longer  be  an  useful  servant  to  the  public.  At  pre- 
sent there  is  something  oracular  in  the  delivery  of  my  opi- 
nions. I  speak  from  a  recess  which  no  human  curiosity  can 
penetrate,  and  darkness,  we  are  told,  is  one  source  of  the 
sublime. — The  mystery  of  Junius  increases  his  importance. 

JUNIUS. 


No.  71. 

Prince's  Court,  Thursday,  Sept.  19. 

Mr.  Wilkes  thanks  Mr.  Woodfall  for  the  care  of  the 
former  letter,  and  desires  him  to  transmit  the  inclosed  to 
Junius. 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *197 


TO  JUNIUS. 

Sir,  Sept.  19, 1771. 

I  had  last  night  the  honour  of  your  letter  of  yesterday's 
date.  I  unjust  going  to  the  Common  Hall,  but  first  take  up  the 
pen  to  thank  you  for  the  kindness  you  express  to  me,  and  to 
say  that  the  Bill  of  Rights  meet  next  Tuesday.  I  thought  it 
necessary  not  to  lose  a  moment  in  giving  you  this  informa- 
tion, that  whatever  you  judge  proper  may  be  submitted  to 
that  society  as  early  as  possible.  Junius  may  command  me 
in  every  thing.  When  he  says  M  my  second  letter  is  of  public 
import,  and  must  not  be  suppressed.  I  did  not  mean  that  it 
should  be  buried  in  Prince's  Court,"— -does  he  wish  it  should 
be  communicated  to  the  society,  and  in  what  manner?  The 
beginning  of  the  second  letter  refers  to  a  first  letter,  and 
some  other  expressions  may  be  improper  for  the  knowledge 
of  the  society.  I  wait  Junius's  directions.  I  beg  his  free 
sentiments  on  all  occasions.  I  mean  next  week  to  state  a 
variety  of  particulars  for  his  consideration  and  in  answer  to 
his  letter.  I  had  now  only  a  moment  to  mention  a  point  of 
business  and  a  feeling  of  gratitude. 

JOHN  WILKES. 


No.  72. 
Sir,  21st  September,  17711. 

Since  you  are  so  obliging  as  to  say,  you  will  be  guided  by 
my  opinion  as  to  the  manner  of  laying  my  sentiments  before 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  I  see  no  reason  why  the  whole  of  the 
second  letter  may  not  be  read  there  next  Tuesday,  except 
the  postscript,  which  has  no  connection  with  the  rest,  and  the 
word  ridiculous,  which  may  naturally  give  offence; — as  I 
mean  to  persuade  and  soften,  not  irritate  or  offend.  Let 
that  word  be  expunged.  The  prefatory  part  you  may  leave 
or  not  as  you  think  proper.  You  are  not  bound  to  satisfy  any 
man's  curiosity  upon  a  private  matter,  and  upon  my  silence 
you  may,  I  believe,  depend  entirely.  As  to  other  passages 

1  Written  on  it  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  "  Received  Sept.  21,  1771 " 


*198  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

I  have  no  favour  or  affection,  so  let  all  go.  It  should  be  co- 
pied over  in  a  better  hand. 

If  any  objections  are  raised,  which  are  answered  in  my 
third  letter,  you  will,  I  am  sure,  answer  for  me,  so  far  forth, 
ore  tenus. 

JUNIUS. 

By  all  means  let  it  be  copied. — This  manuscript  is  for 
private  use  only. 


No.  73. 
Sir,  Monday.1 

When  I  wrote  to  you  on  Saturday,  it  did  not  occur  to  me 
that  your  own  advertisement  had  already  informed  the  pub- 
lic of  your  receiving  two  letters;  your  omitting  the  preamble 
to  the  second  letter  would  therefore  be  to  no  purpose. 

In  my  opinion  you  should  not  wish  to  decline  the  appear- 
ance of  being  particularly  addressed  in  that  letter.  It  is  cal- 
culated to  give  you  dignity  with  the  public.  There  is  more 
in  it  than  perhaps  you  are  aware  of.  Depend  upon  it,  the 
perpetual  union  of  Wilkes  and  mob  does  you  no  service.  Not 
but  that  I  love  and  esteem  the  mob. — It  is  your  interest  to 
keep  up  dignity  and  gravity  besides.  I  would  not  make 
myself  cheap  by  walking  the  streets  so  much  as  you  do.  Ver- 
bum  sat. 


No.  74. 

TO  JUNIUS. 
Sir,  Wednesday,  Sept.  25. 

Yesterday  I  attended  the  meeting  of  the  Society  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights,  and  laid  before  them  the  letter,  which  I  had 
the  honour  of  receiving  from  you  on  the  7th  of  September. 
The  few  lines  of  the  preamble  I  omitted,  the  word  ridicu- 
lous, according  to  your  directions,  and  a  very  few  more 
lines  towards  the  conclusion.  All  the  rest  was  a  faithful 
transcript,  the  exact  tenor2.  The  season  of  the  year  occa- 

1  Written  on  it  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  "  Received  Sept.  23,  1771." 
3  when  Mr.  Wilkes  was  prosecuted  in  the  year  1764,  for  publishing  the 

North 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *199 

sioned  the  meeting  to  be  ill  attended,  only  eleven  members 
were  present.  The  following  resolution  passed  unanimously: 
"  That  Mr.  Wilkes  be  desired  to  transmit  to  Junius  the 
thanks  of  the  Society  for  his  letter,  and  to  assure  him,  that 
it  was  received  with  all  the  respect  due  to  his  distinguished 
character  and  abilities."  Soon  after  my  fever  obliged  me  to 
return  home,  and  I  have  not  heard  of  any  thing  further 
being  done;  but  Mr.  Lee  told  me  he  thought  the  letter  ca- 
pable of  a  full  answer,  which  he  meant  on  a  future  day,  to 
submit  to  the  Society,  and  would  previously  communicate 
to  me.  The  letter  is  left  in  the  hands  Mr.  Reynolds,  who 
has  the  care  of  the  other  papers  of  the  Society,  with  direc- 
tions to  permit  every  member  to  peruse,  and  even  transcribe 
it,  on  the  promise  of  non-publication.  Some  particular  ex- 
pressions appeared  rather  too  harsh  and  grating  to  the  ears 
of  some  of  the  members. 

Surely,  Sir,  nothing  in  the  advertisement  I  inserted  in  the 
Public  Advertiser,  could  lead  to  the  idea  of  the  two  let- 
ters I  mentioned  coming  from  Junius.  I  intreat  him  to 
peruse  once  more,  that  guarded  advertisement.  I  hope  that 
Mr.  Bull's,  and  my  address  of  Saturday,  was  approved 
where  I  most  desire  it  should  be  thought  of  favourably.  I 
know  it  made  our  enemies  wince  in  the  most  tender  part. 
I  am  too  ill  to-day  to  add  more. 

JOHN  WILKES. 


No.  75. 

Sir,  16th  October,  1771. 

I  cannot  help  expressing  to  you  my  thanks  and  approba- 
tion of  your  letter  of  this  day1.   I  think  it  proper,  manly,  and 

North  Briton,  No.  45,  Lord  Mansfield  issued  an  order  for  Mr.  Wilkes's 
attorney  or  solicitor  to  attend  at  his  house,  on  the  morning  previous  to  the 
trial,  "  to  shew  cause  why  the  information  in  this  cause  should  not  be 
amended  by  striking  out  the  word  purport,  in  the  several  places  where 
it  is  mentioned  in  the  said  information,  (except  in  the  first  place)  and  in- 
serting, instead  thereof,  the  word  tenor."  The  Chief  Justice  was  accused 
of  having  suggested  this  alteration,  and  several  objections  were  taken  to 
it,  which,  in  argument,  were  overruled  by  the  Court. 

1  This  was  a  long  address  from  Mr.  Wilkes  to  the  livery  of  London,  in 

his 


#200  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

to  the  purpose.  In  these  altercations  nothing  can  be  more 
useful,  than  to  preserve  dignity  and  sa?ig"  froid— for  titer  in 
re,  suaviter  in  modo,  increases  both  the  force  and  the  seve- 
rity. Your  conduct  to  Mr.  Sawbridge  is  every  thing  I  could 
wish1.  Be  assured,  you  will  find  it  both  honourable  and 
judicious.  Had  it  been  adopted  a  little  sooner,  you  might 
have  returned  him  and  Crosby,  and  taken  the  whole  merit 
of  it  to  yourself.  If  I  am  truly  informed  of  Mr.  S.'s  beha- 
viour on  the  hustings,  I  must  confess  it  does  not  satisfy  me. 
But  perseverance,  management,  and  determined  good  hu- 
mour, will  set  every  thing  right,  and,  in  the  end,  break  the 
heart  of  Mr.  Home.  Nothing  can  be  more  true  than  what 
you  say  about  great  men2.  They  are  indeed  a  worthless, 

his  own  defence,  from  an  attack  which  had  been  made  upon  him  by  Mr- 
Alderman  Townshend.  We  shall  extract  such  parts  of  it  as  are  more 
particularly  alluded  to  by  Junius  in  this  letter. 

1  "  Mr.  Townshend  asks,  '  Does  he  (Mr.  Wilkes)  allow  one  man  in  the 
court  of  aldermen  to  be  worthy  of  your  confidence,  except  himself  and 
Mr.  Crosby?'  Let  me  state  the  question  about  Mr.  Sawbridge.  Mr. 
Wilkes  has  declared  under  his  hand,  in  all  the  public  papers,  ■  No  man 
can  honour  Mr.  Sawbridge  more  than  I  do,  for  every  public  and  private 
'virtue,  which  constitutes  a  great  and  amiable  character.'  Was  this  praise 
cold  or  penurious?  Was  it  not  deserving  a  better  return  than  it  seems  to 
have  found?  Is  not  such  a  character  worthy  of  your  confidence?"  Mr. 
Wilkes's  letter  of  Oct.  15. 

2  "  Mr.  Morris  told  us  at  the  Bill  of  Rights,  that  when  he  pressed  Mr- 
Townshend  about  the  affair  of  the  printers,  his  answer  was,  that  he  did 
not  find  he  should  be  supported  by  any  great  man,  and  otherwise  it 
would  be  imprudent,  therefore  did  not  chuse  to  act  in  it.  The  prudent  Mr. 
Townshend  may  wait  the  consent  of  great  men.  I  will  on  a  national  call 
follow  instantly  the  line  of  my  duty,  regardless  of  their  applause  or  cen- 
sure. Public  spirit  and  virtue  are  seldom  in  the  company  of  his  Lordship 
or  his  Grace.  [The  case  of  the  printers  is  detailed  in  note  to  Miscellane- 
ous Letters,  No.  xcu.  Vol.  II.  p.  403  ] 

"  Has  not,  by  the  conduct  of  your  Magistrates,  a  complete  victory  been 
gained  over  the  usurped  powers  both  of  the  Crown  and  the  House  of 
Commons?  The  two  questions  had  been  frequently  agitated  among  the 
friends  of  liberty,  even  while  I  remained  at  the  King's  Bench.  When  the 
city  and  the  nation  had  clearly  decided  in  favour  of  the  cause,  the  great 
men  followed,  as  they  generally  do,  joined  the  public  cry,  and  thronged  to 
the  Tower  to  pay  their  tardy  tribute  of  praise  to  the  persecuted  patriots. 
The  business  had  been  completed  without  their  assistance.  In  all  such 

cases 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *201 

pitiful  race.  Chatham  has  gallantly  thrown  away  the  scab- 
bard, and  never  flinched.  From  that  moment  I  began  to  like 
him. 

I  see  we  do  not  agree  about  the  strict  right  of  pressing1. 
If  you  are  as  sincere  as  I  am,  we  shall  not  quarrel  about  a 
difference  of  opinion.  I  shall  say  a  few  words  to-morrow  on 
this  subject,  under  the  signature  of  Philo  Junius. — The  let- 
ters under  that  name  have  been  hastily  drawn  up,  but  the 
principles  are  tenable.  I  thought  your  letter  about  the  mili- 
tary very  proper  and  well  drawn2. 

JUNIUS. 

cases  I  am  persuaded  we  shall  find,  that  the  people  will  be  obliged  to  do 
their  own  business;  but  if  it  succeeds,  they  may  be  sure  of  the  concur- 
rence and  applause  of  the  great,  and  their  even  entering  the  most  lothsomfi 
prisons  or  dungeons — on  a  short  visit  of  parade."  Mr.  Wilkes's  letter  of 
Oct.  15. 

1  "  As  a  good  Englishman  and  citizen,  I  thanked  my  brethren  Saw- 
bridge  and  Oliver  for  having  so  nobly  discharged  their  duty  as  aldermen 
in  the  business  of  Press  Warrants,  on  which  I  expatiated  as  the  most 
•ruel  species  of  General  Warrants."  Id. 

2  Shortly  previous  to  Messrs..  Wilkes  and  Bull  entering  upon  their  office 
of  Sheriffs  of  London,  thev  addressed  a  short  letter  to  the  livery,  con- 
taining a  paragraph  respecting  the  military,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
copy:— 

"  We  have  observed  with  the  deepest  concern,  that  a  military  force 
has,  on  several  late  occasions,  been  employed  by  an  unprincipled  adminis- 
tration, under  the  pretence  of  assisting  the  civil  power  in  carrying  the 
sentence  of  the  laws  into  execution  The  conduct  of  the  present  sheriffs, 
in  the  remarkable  case  of  the  two  unhappy  men  who  suffered  in  July,  near 
Bethnal  Green,  was  truly  patriotic.  We  are  determined  to  follow  so  meri- 
torious an  example,  and  as  that  melancholy  part  of  our  office  will  com- 
mence in  a  very  few  days,  we  take  this  opportunity  of  declaring,  that  as  the 
constitution  has  entrusted  us  with  the  whole  power  of  the  county,  we  will 
not,  during  our  sheriffalty,  suffer  any  part  of  the  army  to  interfere,  or  even 
to  attend,  as  on  many  former  occasions,  on  the  pretence  of  aiding  or  as- 
sisting the  civil  magistrate.  This  resolution  we  declare  to  the  public,  and 
to  administration,  to  prevent  during  our  continuance  in  office,  the  sending 
of  any  detachments  from  the  regular  forces  on  such  a  service,  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  all  future  alarming  disputes.  The  civil  power  of  this  country  we 
are  sure  is  able  to  support  itself  and  a  good  government.  The  magistrate, 
with  the  assistance  of  those  in  his  jurisdiction,  is  by  experience  known  to 
¥e  strong  enough  to  enforce  all  legal  commands,  without  the  aid  of  a 
standing  army.  Where  that  is  not  the  case,  a  nation  must  sink  into  an  ab- 
Voi..  I.  *  2  C  solute 


i 


*2Q2  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 


No.  76. 

Sir,  Oct  17, 1771. 

I  am  not  yet  recovered,  and  to-day  have  been  harassed 
with  complaints  against  the  greatest  villains  out  of  hell,  the 
bailiffs;  but  so  very  polite  and  friendly  a  letter  as  Junius's 
of  yesterday  demands  my  earliest  and  warmest  acknowledg- 
ments. I  only  take  up  the  pen  to  say  that  I  think  myself  hap- 
py in  his  approbation,  that  a  line  of  applause  from  him  gives 
the  same  brisk  circulation  to  my  spirits,  as  a  kiss  from  Chloe, 
and  that  I  mean  soon  to  communicate  to  him  a  project  of 
importance. — I  will  skirmish  with  the  great  almost  every 
day  in  some  way  or  other.  Does  Junius  approve  the  follow- 
ing manoeuvre,  instead  of  going  in  a  gingerbread  chariot  to 
yawn  through  a  dull  sermon  at  St.  Paul's. 

"  Old  Bailey,  Oct  24th,  1771. 
"  Mr.  Sheriff  Wilkes  presents  his  duty  to  the  Lord  May- 
or, and  asks  his  Lordship's  leave  to  prefer  the  real  service 
of  his  country  to-morrow  in  the  administration  of  justice 
here,  to  the  vain  parade  on  the  anniversary  of  the  accession 
of  a  prince,  under  whose  inauspicious  government  an  uni- 
versal discontent  prevails  among  the  people,  and  who  still 
leaves  the  most  intolerable  grievances  of  his  subjects  unre- 
dressed."— This  card  to  be  published  at  length.  Will  Junius 
suggest  any  alteration  or  addition?  It  is  a  bold  step. — The 
sessions  will  not  be  ended  on  the  25th,  and  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  sheriff  to  attend.  I  will  follow  all  your  hints  about  Mr. 
Sawbridge. — I  am  sorry  to  differ  so  much  from  you,  about 
Press  Warrants.  I  own  that  I  have  warmly  gone  through 

solute  military  government,  and  every  thing  valuable  to  the  subject  be  at 
the  mercy  of  the  soldiery  and  their  commander.  We  leave  to  our  brave 
countrymen  of  the  army  the  glory  of  conquering  our  foreign  enemies.  Wc 
pledge  ourselves  to  the  public  for  the  faithful  and  exact  discharge  of  our 
duty  in  every  emergency  without  their  assistance.  We  desire  to  save  them 
a  service  we  know  they  detest,  and  we  take  on  ourselves  the  painful  task 
of  those  unpleasing  scenes,  which  our  office  calls  upon  us  to  superintend. 
The  laws  of  our  country  shall,  in  all  instances  during  our  sheriffalty,  be 
solely  enforced  by  the  authority  and  vigour  of  the  civil  magistrate/' 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  #203 

that  opposition  upon  the  clear  conviction  that  every  argu- 
ment alleged  for  the  legality  of  the  Press  Warrant  would 
do  equally  well  for  ship  money.  I  believe  Junius  as  sincere 
as  myself,  I  will  therefore  be  so  far  from  quarrelling  with 
him  for  any  difference  of  opinion,  that  when  I  find  we  dis- 
agree I  will  act  with  double  caution,  and  some  distrust  of 
the  certainty  of  my  being  clearly  in  the  right. 

I  hope  the  Sheriff's  letter  to  Mr.  Akerman  has  your  ap- 
probation. Does  Junius  wish  for  any  dinner  or  ball  tickets 
for  the  lord  mayor's  day,  for  himself,  or  friends,  or  a  favour- 
ite, or  Junia?  The  day  will  be  worth  observation.  Whether 
creta  an  carbone  notandus^  I  do  not  know;  but  the  people^  Sir, 
the  people  are  the  sight.  How  happy  should  Imbe  to  see  my 
Portia  here  dance  a  graceful  minuet  with  Junius  Brutus! 
but  Junius  is  inexorable  and  I  submit.  I  would  send  your 
tickets  to  Woodfall. 

To-morrow  I  go  with  the  Lord  Mayor  and  my  brother 
sheriff  to  Rochester  to  take  up  our  freedoms.  We  return  on 
Sunday  night. 

I  entreat  of  Junius  to  favour  me  with  every  idea,  which 
occurs  to  him  for  the  common  cause,  in  every  particular  re- 
lative to  my  conduct.  He  shall  find  me  no  less  grateful  than 

ductile. 

JOHN  WILKES. 

No.  77. 

London,  21  October,  1771. 

Many  thanks  for  your  obliging  offer; — but  alas!  my  age 
and  figure  would  do  but  little  credit  to  my  partner. — I  ac- 
knowledge the  relation  between  Cato  and  Portia,  but  in  truth 
I  see  no  connexion  between  Jumius  and  a  minuet. 

You  shall  have  my  opinion  whenever  you  think  proper  to 
ask  it,  freely,  honestly,  and  heartily. — If  I  were  only  a  party- 
man  I  should  naturally  concur  in  any  enterprize,  likely  to 
create  a  bustle  without  risque  or  trouble  to  myself.  But  I 
love  the  cause  independent  of  persons,  and  I  wish  well  to 
Mr.  Wilkes  independent  of  the  cause.  Feeling,  as  I  really 
do,  for  others  where  my  own  safety  is  provided  for,  the  dan^ 


£204  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

ger  to  which  I  expose  a  simple  printer,  afflicts  and  distresses. 
me.  It  lowers  me  to  myself  to  draw  another  into  a  hazard- 
ous situation  which  I  cannot  partake  of  with  him.  This 
consideration  will  account  for  mv  abstaining  from  *  *  *  * 
■*####  so  long,  and  for  the  undeserved  modtration 
with  which  I  have  treated  him.  I  know  my  ground  tho- 
roughly when  I  affirm  that  he  alone  is  the  mark.  It  is  not 
Bute,  nor  even  the  Princess  Dowager.   It  is  *****  * 

4r     >fv'     t?     "%s     •)?     "l?     TrTr-sF^TT^fP^^P^F^F     ^F     -tF     *     ifc    •¥?     *t£     \V  n  O  ttl 

every  honest  man  should  detest,  and  every  brave  man  should 
attack.  Some  measures  of  dignity  and  prudence  must  never- 
theless be  preserved  for  our  own  sakes.  I  think  your  intend- 
ed message  to  the  lord  mavor  is  more  spirited  than  judicious, 
and  that  it  may  be  attended  with  consequences  which  (com- 
pared with  the  single  purpose  of************ 
******  #^  are  not  worth  hazarding — non  est  tanti — 
consider  it  is  not  Junius  or  Jack  Wilkes,  but  a  grave  sheriff 
(for  grave  you  should  be)  who  marks  his  entrance  into  office 
with  a  direct  outrage  to  the  ************** 
*  *;  that  it  is  only  an  outrage,  and  leads  to  nothing. — Will 
not  courtiers  take  advantage?  Will  not  Whigs  be  offended? 
And  whether  offended  or  not,  will  not  all  parties  pretend  to 
condemn  you?  If  measures  and  not  men  has  any  meaning 
(and  I  own  it  has  very  little),  it  must  hold  particularly  in 
the  case  of********;  and  if  truth  and  reason  be  on 
one  side,  and  all  the  common-place  topics  on  the  other,  can 
you  doubt  to  which  side  the  multitude  .will  incline?  Besides 
that  it  is  too  early  to  begin  this  kind  of  attack,  I  confess  I 
am  anxious  for  your  safety.  I  know  that  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  law  they  cannot  hurt  you;  but  did  the  idea  of  a 
Bill  of  Banishment  never  occur  to  your  And  don't  you  think 
a  demonstration  of  this  kind  on  your  part  might  furnish 
government  with  a  specious  pretence  for  destroying  you 
at  once,  by  a  summary  proceeding?  Consider  the  measure 
coolly  and  then  determine. 

If  these  loose  thoughts  should  not  weigh  with  you  as 
much  as  I  could  wish,  1  would  then  recommend  a  little 
alteration  in  the  message.  I  would  have  it  stated  thus:— 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  #205 

"  Prince's  Court,  24  October,  1771. 

M  Mr.  Wilkes  presents  his  duty  to  the  Lord  Mayor,  and 
flatters  himself  he  shall  be  honoured  with  his  Lordship's 
approbation,  if  he  prefers  the  real  service  of  his  country  to- 
morrow in  the  administration  of  justice  at  the  Old  Bailey, 
to  the  vain  parade  of  a  procession  to  St.  Paul's. — With  the 
warmest  attachment  to  the  House  of  Hanover,  and  the  most 
determined  allegiance  to  the  chief  magistrate,  he  hopes  it 
will  not  be  thought  incumbent  on  him  to  take  an  active  part 
in  celebrating  the  accession  of  a  prince,  under  whose  inaus- 
picious reign  the  English  constitution  has  been  grossly  and 
deliberately  violated,  the  civil  rights  of  the  people  no  less 
daringly  invaded,  and  their  humble  petitions  for  redress 
rejected  with  contempt." — 

In  the  first  part,  to  ask  a  man's  leave  to  prefer  the  real  ser- 
vice of  our  country  to  a  vain  parade,  seems,  if  serious,  too 
servile;— if  jest,  unseasonable,  and  rather  approaching  to 
burlesque. — The  rest  appears  to  me  not  less  strong  than 
your  own  words,  and  better  guarded  in  pomt  of  safety, 
which  you  neglect  too  much. — I  am  now  a  little  hurried, 
and  shall  write  to  you  shortly  upon  some  other  topics. 

JUNIUS. 


No.  78. 

Prince's  Court,  Monday  Morning,  Nov.  4. 
On  my  return  home  last  night  I  had  the  very  great  plea- 
sure of  reading  the  Dedication  and  Preface  which  Mr. 
Woodfall  left  for  me.  I  am  going  with  the  city  officers  to 
invite  the  little  great  to  the  custard  on  Saturday.  Perditur 
hoc  inter  misero  lux.  I  shall  only  add,  accept,  legi,  probavL 
I  am  much  honoured  by  the  polite  attention  of  Junius1. 

1  Upon  this  letter  was  written  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  "On  returning'  Junius, 
fhe  Dedication  and  Preface  he  sent  me." 


*206  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 


No.  79. 

6  November,  1771. 

I  entreat  you  to  procure  for  me  copies  of  the  informa- 
tions against  Eyre  before  the  Lord  Mayor.  I  presume  they 
were  taken  in  writing.  If  not  I  beg  you  will  favour  me  with 
the  most  exact  account  of  the  substance  of  them,  and  any  ob- 
servations of  your  own  that  you  think  material.  If  I  am 
right  in  my  facts,  I  answer  for  my  law,  and  mean  to  attack 
Lord  Mansfield  as  soon  as  possible. 

My  American  namesake  is  plainly  a  man  of  abilities, 
though  I  think  a  little  unreasonable,  when  he  insists  upon 
more  than  an  absolute  surrender  of  the  fact.  I  agree  with 
him  that  it  is  a  hardship  on  the  Americans  to  be  taxed  by  the 
British  legislature;  but  it  is  a  hardship  inseparable  in  theory 
from  the  condition  of  colonists,  in  which  they  have  volunta- 
rily placed  themselves.  If  emigration  be  no  crime  to  deserve 
punishment,  it  is  certainly  no  virtue  to  claim  exemption;  and 
however  it  may  have  proved  eventually  beneficial,  the  mother 
country  was  but  little  obliged  to  the  intentions  of  the  first 
emigrants.  But,  in  fact,  change  of  place  does  not  exempt 
from  subjection: — the  members  of  our  factories  settled  under 
foreign  governments,  and  whose  voluntary  banishment  is 
much  more  laudable  with  regard  to  the  mother  country,  are 
taxed  with  the  laws  of  consulage.  Au  reste,  I  see  no  use  in 
fighting  this  question  in  the  news-papers,  nor  have  I  time. 
You  may  assure  Dr.  Lee,  that  to  my  heart  and  understand- 
ing the  names  of  American  and  Englishman  are  synony- 
mous, and  that  as  to  any  future  taxation  of  America,  I  look 
upon  it  as  near  to  impossible  as  the  highest  improbability 
can  go. 

I  hope  that  since  he  has  opposed  me  where  he  thinks  me 
wrong,  he  will  be  equally  ready  to  assist  me  when  he  thinks 
me  right.  Besides  the  fallibility  natural  to  us  all,  no  man 
writes  under  so  many  disadvantages  as  I  do.  I  cannot  con- 
sult the  learned,  I  cannot  directly  ask  the  opinion  of  my 
acquaintance,  and  in  the  newspapers  I  never  am  assisted. 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *2()7 

Those  who  are  conversant  with  books,  well  know  how 
often  they  mislead  us,  when  we  have  not  a  living  monitor  at 
hand  to  assist  us  in  comparing  practice  with  theory. 

No.  80. 

TO  JUNIUS. 
Sir,  Prince's  Court,  Wednesday,  Nov.  6. 

I  do  not  delay  a  moment  giving  you  the  information  you 
wish.  I  enclose  a  copy  of  Eyre's  commitment.  Nothing  else 
in  this  business  has  been  reduced  to  writing.  The  examina- 
tion was  hefore  the  sitting  justice,  Alderman  Hallifax,  at 
Guildhall;  and  it  is  not  usual  to  take  it  in  writing,  on  account 
of  the  multiplicity  of  business  there.  The  paper  was  found 
upon  him.  He  was  asked  what  he  had  to  say  in  his  defence, 
his  answer  was,  I  hope  you  will  bail  me.  Mr.  Holder,  the 
clerk,  answered,  that  is  impossible.  There  never  was  an  in- 
stance of  it,  when  the  person  was  taken  in  the  fact,  or  the 
goods  found  upon  him.  I  believe  Holder's  law  is  right.  Al- 
derman Hallifax  likewise  granted  a  search  warrant  prior  to 
the  examination.  At  Eyre's  lodgings  many  more  quires  of 
paper  were  found,  all  marked  on  purpose,  from  a  suspicion 
of  Eyre.  After  Eyre  had  been  some  time  at  Wood  Street 
Compter,  a  key  was  found  in  his  room  there,  which  appears 
to  be  a  key  to  the  closet  at  Guildhall,  from  whence  the  paper 
was  stolen.  The  Lord  Mayor  refused  to  bail  Eyre,  but  I  do 
not  find  that  any  fresh  examination  was  taken  at  the  Man- 
sion-house. The  circumstances  were  well  known.  I  was  pre- 
sent at  the  examination  before  Hallifax,  but  as  sheriff  could 
not  interfere,  only  I  whispered  Hallifax  he  could  not  bail 
Eyre.  Anglus  in  to-day's  Public  Advertiser  told  some  par- 
ticulars I  had  mentioned.  I  did  not  know  of  that  letter;  it  is 
Mr.  Bernard's  of  Berkeley  Square.  As  to  the  Americans,  I 
declare  I  know  no  difference  between  an  inhabitant  of  Bos- 
ton in  Lincolnshire,  and  of  Boston  in  New  England.  I 
honour  the  Americans;  but  our  ancestors  who  staid  and 
drove  out  the  tyrant,  are  justly  greater  in  merit  and  fame 


^208  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

than  those  who  fled  and  deserted  their  countrymen.  Their 
future  conduct  has  been  a  noble  atonement,  and  their  sons 
have  much  surpassed  them.  I  will  mention  to  Dr.  Lee  what 
you  desire.  You  shall  have  every  communication  you  wish 
from  me.  Yet  I  beg  Junius  to  reflect  a  moment.  To  whom 
am  I  now  writing?  I  am  all  doubt  and  uncertainty,  though 
not  mistrust  or  suspicion.  I  should  be  glad  to  canvass  freely 
every  part  of  a  great  plan.  I  dare  not  write  it  to  a  man  I  do 
not  know,  of  whose  connexions  I  am  totally  ignorant.  I  differ 
with  Junius  in  one  point:  I  think  by  being  concealed  he  has 
infinite  advantages  which  I  want.  I  am  on  the  Indian  coast, 
where,  from  the  fire  kindled  round  me,  I  am  marked  out  to 
every  hostile  arrow  which  knows  its  way  to  me.  Those  who 
are  in  the  dark  are  safe,  from  the  want  of  direction  of  the 
pointless  shaft.  I  followed  Junius's  advice  about  the  card 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  King's  accession.  I  dropped  the 
idea.  I  wish  to  know  his  sentiments  about  certain  projects 
against  the  usurped  powers  of  the  House  of  Lords.  The  bu- 
siness is  too  vast  to  write,  too  hazardous  to  communicate  to 
an  unknown  person.  Junius  will  forgive  me.  What  can  be 
done? — "  Alas!"  where  is  the  man  after  all  Wilkes  has  ex- 
perienced, in  whose  friendly  bosom  he  can  repose  his  secret 
thoughts,  his  noble  but  most  dangerous  designs?  The  person 
most  capable  he  can  have  no  access  to,  and  all  others  he  will 
not  trust.  I  stand  alone,  isole  as  the  French  call  it,  a  single 
column  unpropped,  and  perhaps  nodding  to  its  fall. 

JOHN  WILKES. 


No.  81. 

9  November,  1771. 

1  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  information  about 
Eyre.  The  facts  are  as  I  understood  them,  and,  with  the 
blessing  of  God,  I  will  pull  Mansfield  to  the  ground. 

Your  offer  to  communicate  your  plan  against  the  Lords 
was  voluntary.  Do  now  as  you  think  proper.  I  have  no  re- 
sentments but  against  the  common  enemy,  and  will  assist  you 
in  any  way  that  you  will  suffer  yourself  to  be  assisted.   When 


JUNIUS  AND  Mr.  WILKES.  *209 

you  have  satisfied  your  understanding  that  there  maybe  rea- 
sons why  Junius  should  attack  the  King,  the  minister,  the 
court  of  King's  Bench,  and  the  House  of  Commons,  in  the 
way  that  I  have  done,  and  yet  should  desert  or  betray  the 
man  who  attacks  the  House  of  Lords,  I  would  still  appeal  to 
your  heart.  Or  if  you  have  any  scruples  about  that  kind  of 
evidence,  ask  that  amiable  daughter  whom  you  so  implicitly 
confide  in — Is  it  possible  that  Junius  should  betray  me?  Do 
not  conceive  that  I  solicit  new  employment.  I  am  overcome 
with  the  slavery  of  writing. 

Farewell. 


No.  82. 

Prince's  Court,  near  Storey's  Gate,  Westminster, 
Wednesday,  January  15,  1772. 
TO  JUNIUS. 

A  necessary  attention  to  my  health  engrossed  my  time 
entirely  in  the  few  holidays  I  spent  at  Bath,  and  I  am  re- 
warded with  being  perfectly  recovered.  The  repairs  of  the 
clay  cottage,  to  which  I  am  tenant  for  life,  seem  to  have  taken 
place  very  successfully;  and  the  building  will  probably  last  a 
few  more  years  in  tolerable  condition. 

Yesterday  I  met  the  Supporters  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  at  the 
London  Tavern.  Much  discourse  passed  about  the  publica- 
tion of  Junius's  letter.  Dr.  Lee  and  Mr.  Watkin  Lewes, 
who  were  both  suspected,  fully  exculpated  themselves.  I  be- 
lieve the  publication  was  owing  to  the  indiscretion  of  Mr. 
Patrick  Cawdron,  a  linendraper  in  Cheapside,  who  shewed. 
it  to  his  partner  on  the  Saturday.  The  partner  copied  it  on 
the  Sunday,  and  the  Monday  following  it  appeared  in  the 
Morning  Chronicle.  The  Gazetteer  only  copied  it  from 
thence.  The  Society  directed  a  disavowal  of  their  publica- 
tion of  it  to  be  sent  to  you,  and  are  to  take  the  letter  into 
consideration  at  the  next  meeting.  I  forgot  to  mention  that 
Mr.  Cawdron  keeps  the  papers  of  the  Society. 

The  winter  campaign  will  begin  with  the  next  week.  I  be- 
lieve that  the  sheriffs  will  have  the  old  batde  renewed  with 

Vol.  I.  *%  D 


#210  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 

the  Commons,  and  I  suppose  the  lord  mayor  and  the  courtly 
aldermen  will  commit  the  printer  for  us  to  release.  Another 
scene  will  probably  open  with  the  Lords.  Junius  has  ob- 
served, "  the  arbitrary  power  they  have  assumed  of  imposing 
fines,  and  committing  during  pleasure,  will  now  be  exercised 
in  its  fullest  extent."  The  progress  of  the  business  I  suspect 
will  be  this — a  bitter  libel  against  Pomfret,  Denbigh,  or  Tal- 
bot, attacking  the  peer  personally,  not  in  his  legislative  or 
judicial  capacity,  will  appear.  His  Lordship,  passion's  slave^ 
will  complain  to  thr  House.  They  will  order  the  printer  into 
custody  and  set  a  heavy  fine.  The  Sheriffs  the  next  morning 
will  go  to  Newgate,  examine  the  warrant  of  commitment, 
and,  like  the  angel  to  Peter,  take  the  prisoner  by  the  hand 
and  conduct  him  out  of  prison;  afterwards  they  will  probably 
snake  their  appeal  to  the  public  against  the  usurpation  of 
their  Lordships,  and  their  entirely  setting  aside  the  power 
of  juries  in  their  proceedings. 

Aie  there  more  furious  wild  beasts  to  be  found  in  the  up- 
per den  than  the  three  I  have  named?  Miller,  the  printer  of 
the  London  Evening  Post,  at  No.  2,  Queen's  Head  Passage2 
Paternoster  Row,  is  the  best  man  I  know  for  this  business. 
He  will  print  whatever  is  sent  him.  He  is  a  fine  Oliverian 
soldier.  I  intend  a  manifesto  with  my  name  on  Monday  to 
give  spirit  to  the  printers,  and  to  shew  them  who  will  be  their 
protector.  I  foresee  it  will  make  the  two  houses  more  cau- 
tious, but  it  is  necessary  for  our  friends,  and  the  others  shall 
be  baited  till  they  are  driven  into  the  snare.  Adieu. 

JOHN  WILKES. 


LETTERS 


OF 


JUNIUS. 


DEDICATION 


TO  THE 


ENGLISH  NATION. 


1  DEDICATE  to  You  a  collection  of  Letters,  written, 
by  one  of  Yourselves  for  the  common  benefit  of  us  all.  They 
would  never  have  grown  to  this  size,  without  Your  continu- 
ed encouragement  and  applause*.  To  me  they  originally 
owe  nothing,  but  a  healthy,  sanguine  constitution.  Under 
Tour  care  they  have  thriven.  To  Toil  they  are  indebted  for 
whatever  strength  or  beauty  they  possess.  When  Kings  and 
Ministers__are  forgotten^  when  the  force  and  direction  of  ^ 

personal  satire  is  no  longer  understood,  and  when  measures     ^kXP^ 
are  only  felt  in  their  remotest^  consejcuiejicgs,  this  book  will,       <r^ 
I  believe,  be  found  to  contain  principles,  worthy  to  be  trans- 
mitted to  posterity.  When  You  leave  the  unimpaired,  here- 
ditary freehold  to  Your  children,  You  do  but  half  Your 
duty.  Both  liberty  and  property  are  precarious,  unless  the 
possessors  have  sense  and  spirit  enough  to  defend  them. — 
This  is  not  the  language  of  vanity.  If  I  am  a  vain  man,  my 
gratification  lies  within  a  narrow  circle.  I  am  the  sole  depo-     _3S^ 
sitary  of  my  own  secret,  and  it  shall  perish  with  mef. 

*  See  Private  Letters,  No.  5.  in  which  the  author,  shortly  after  his  ap- 
pearance before  the  public  under  the  signature  of  Junius,  expresses  an 
intention  to  discontinue  writing  under  that  name;  nor  would  he  in  all  pro- 
bability have  persevered,  but  for  the  reason  assigned  above.  Edit. 

fThis  must  be  understood  only  in  general  terms.  From  the  following 
passage  in  Private  Letters,  No.  8.  it  is  obvious  that  there  were  persons  to 

Vol.  I.  A  whom 


^ 


2  DEDICATION. 

If  an  honest,  and,  I  may  truly  affirm,  a  laborious  zeal  for 
the  public  service  has  given  me  any  weight  in  Your  esteem, 
let  me  exhort  and  conjure  You  never  to  suffer  an  invasion 
of  Your  political  constitution,  however  minute  the  instance 
may  appear,  to  pass  by,  without  a  determined,  persevering 
resistance.  Qne  precedent  creates  another.  They  soon  accu- 
*%J>-  mulate,  and  constitute  law.  What  yesterday  was  fact^to-day 
is  doctrine.  Examples  are  supposed  to  justify  the  most  dan- 
gerous measures,  and  where  they  do  not  suit  exactly,  the 
defect  is  supplied  by  analogy. — Be  assured  that  the  laws, 
which  protect  us  in  our  civil  rights,  grow  out  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  that  they  must  fall  or  flourish  with  it.  This  is  not 
the  cause  of  faction,  or  of  party,  or  of  any  individual,  but 
the  common  interest  of  every  man  in  Britain.  Although  the 
King  should  continue  to  support  his  present  system  of  go- 
vernment, the  period  is  not  very  distant,  at  which  You  will 
have  the  means  of  redress  in  Your  own  power.  It  may  be 
nearer  perhaps  than  any  of  us  expect,  and  I  would  warn  You 
to  be  prepared  for  it.  The  King  may  possibly  be  advised  to 
dissolve  the  present  parliament  a  year  or  two  before  it  ex- 
pires of  course,  and  precipitate  a  new  election,  in  hopes  of 
taking  the  nation  by  surprize.  If  such  a  measure  be  in  agi- 
tation, this  very  caution  may  defeat  or  prevent  it*. 

I  cannot  doubt  that  You  will  unanimously  assert  the  free- 
dom of  election,  and  vindicate  Your  exclusive  right  to  choose 

whom  the  writer  unbosomed  himself;  although  there  is  still  every  reason 
for  believing  that  such  persons  formed,  as  he  has  expressed  it  above,  only 
<c  narrow  circle. — "The  last  letter  you  printed  was  idle  and  improper,  and, 
J  assure  you,  pruned  against  my  own  opinion.  The  truth  is  there  are  people 
about  me,  whom  I  would  wish  not  to  contradict,  and  who  had  rather  see  Junius 
in  the  papers,  ever  so  improperly,  than  not  at  all."  Edit. 

*  The  object  to  have  been  accomplished  by  obtaining  a  new  parliament 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  of  sufficient  force  to  have  precipitated  such 
a  measure;  and  was,  in  consequence,  relinquished:  on  which  account  the 
parliament  in  question  was  not  dissolved  till  September  30th,  1774,  after 
having  existed  six  years,  four  months,  and  twenty-one  days.  Many  of  the 
letters  of  Junius  turning  upon  the  elective  franchise,  and  the  necessity  of 
triennial  parliaments,  the  reader  may  not  be  displeased  to  see,  at  one 
«/iew,  the  respective  dates  of  the  dissolution  and  re -assembling  of  the  se- 
veral parliaments  during  the.  present  reign. 

Met 


DEDICATION.  3 

Your  representatives.  But  other  questions  have  been  started, 
on  which  Your  determination  should  be  equally  clear  and 
unanimous.  Let  it  be  impressed  upon  Your  minds,  let  it  be 
instilled  into  Your  children,  that  the  liberty  of  the  press  is 
the  Palladium  of  all  the  civil,  political,  and  religious  rights 
of  an  Englishman,  and  that  the  right  of  juries  to  return  a 
general  verdict,  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  is  an  essential  part 
of  our  constitution,  not  to  be  controuled  or  limited  by  the 
judges,  nor  in  any  shape  questionable  by  the  legislature.  The 
power  of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  is  not  an  arbitrary 
power*.  They  are  the  trustees,  not  the  owners  of  the  estate. 
The  fee-simple  is  in  US.  They  cannot  alienate,  they  cannot 
waste.  When  we  say  that  the  legislature  is  supreme^  we  mean 


Met 

Dissolved. 

Y. 

Existed 

M. 

I. 

D. 

26  Oct. 

1760 

20  March 

1761 

0 

4 

25 

19  May 

1761 

11  March 

1768 

6 

9 

22 

10  May 

1768 

30  Sept. 

1774 

6 

4 

21 

29  Nov. 

1774 

1  Sept. 

1780 

5 

9 

4 

31  Oct. 

1780 

25  March 

1784 

0 

4 

26 

18  May 

1784 

11  June 

1790 

6 

0 

25 

10  Aug. 

1790 

20  May 

1796 

5 

11 

0 

12  July 

1796 

31  Dec. 

1800  f> 

CM  TED   KINGDOM,  G.  B.  Si  I.                ^» 

5 

11 

IS 

22  Jan. 

1801 

29  June 

1802  3 

31  Aug-. 

1802 

24  Oct. 

1806 

4 

2 

25 

15  Dec. 

1806 

29  April 

1807 

Q 

4 

15 

22  June 

1807 

f  Stat.  39-40  Geo.  III.  c.  67.  Art  A.  Edit. 
*  This  positive  denial,  of  an  arbitrary  power  being  vested  in  the  legis- 
lature, is  not  in  fact  a  new  doctrine.  When  the  Earl  of  Lindsey,  in  the 
year  1675,  brought  a  bill  into  the  house  of  lords,  To  prevent  the  dangers, 
which  might  arise  from  persons  disaffected  to  government,  by  which  an  oath 
and  penalty  was  to  be  imposed  upon  the  members  of  both  houses,  it  was 
affirmed,  in  a  protest  signed  by  twenty -three  lay-peers,  (my  lords  the  bi- 
shops were  not  accustomed  to  protest)  "  That  the  privilege  of  sitting  and 
voting  in  parliament  was  an  honour  they  had  by  birth,  and  a  right  so  in* 
herent  in  them,  andinsepafcihlefrom  them,  that  nothing  could  take  it  aivay, 
but  what,  by  the  law  of  the  land,  must  withal  take  away  their  lives,  and 
corrupt  their  blood." — These  noble  peers,  (whose  names  are  a  reproach 
to  their  posterity)  have,  in  this  instance,  solemnly  denied  the  power  of 
parliament  to  alter  the  constitution.  Under  a  particular  proposition,  they 
have  asserted  a  general  truth,  in  which  every  man  in  England  is  concerned. 


4  DEDICATION. 

that  it  is  the  highest  power  known  to  the  constitution: — that 
it  is  the  highest  in  comparison  with  the  other  subordinate 
powers  established  by  the  laws.  In  this  sense,  the  word  su- 
preme is  relative,  not  absolute.  The  power  of  the  legislature 
is  limited,  not  only  by  the  general  rules  of  natural  justice, 
and  the  welfare  of  the  community,  but  by  the  forms  and 
principles  of  our  particular  constitution.  If  this  doctrine  be 
not  true,  we  must  admit,  that  King,  Lords,  and  Commons 
have  no  rule  to  direct  their  resolutions,  but  merely  their  own 
will  and  pleasure.  They  might  unite  the  legislative  and  exe- 
cutive power  in  the  same  hands,  and  dissolve  the  constitu- 
tion by  an  act  of  parliament.  But  I  am  persuaded  You  will 
not  leave  it  to  the  choice  of  seven  hundred  persons,  notori- 
ously corrupted  by  the  crown,  whether  seven  millions  of 
their  equals  shall  be  freemen  or  slaves.  The  certainty  of  for- 
feiting their  own  rights,  when  they  sacrifice  those  of  the 
nation,  is  no  check  to  a  brutal  degenerate  mind.  Without 
insisting  upon  the  extravagant  concession  made  to  Harry  the 
eighth,  there  are  instances,  in  the  history  of  other  countries, 
of  a  formal,  deliberate  surrender  of  the  public  liberty  into 
the  hands  of  the  sovereign.  If  England  does  not  share  the 
same  fate,  it  is  because  we  have  better  resources,  than  in  the 
virtue  of  either  house  of  parliament. 

I  said  that  the  liberty  of  the  press  is  the  palladium  of  all 
Your  rights,  and  that  the  right  of  juries  to  return  a  general 
verdict  is  part  of  Your  constitution.  To  preserve  the  whole 
system,  You  must  correct  Your  legislature.  With  regard  to 
any  influence  of  the  constituent  over  the  conduct  of  the  re- 
presentative, there  is  little  difference  between  a  seat  in  par- 
liament for  seven  years  and  a  seat  for  life.  The  prospect  of 
Your  resentment  is  too  remote;  and  although  the  last  session 
of  a  septennial  parliament  be  usually  employed  in  courting 
the  favour  of  the  people,  consider  thnt,  at  this  rate,  Your 
representatives  have  six  years  for  offence,  and  but  one  for 
atonement.  A  death-bed  repentance  seldom  reaches  to  resti- 
tution. If  you  reflect  that  in  the  changes  of  administration, 
which  have  marked  and  disgraced  the  present  reign,  although 
your  warmest  patriots  have  in  their  turn  been  invested  with 


DEDICATION.  5 

the  lawful  and  unlawful  authority  of  the  crown,  and  though 
other  reliefs  or  improvements  have  been  held  forth  to  the 
people,  yet  that  no  one  man  in  office  has  ever  promoted  or 
encouraged  a  bill  for  shortening  the  duration  of  parliaments, 
but  that,  (whoever  was  minister)  the  opposition  to  this  mea- 
sure, ever  since  the  septennial  act  passed,  has  been  constant 
and  uniform  on  the  part  of  government, — You  cannot  but 
conclude,  without  the  possibility  of  a  doubt,  that  long  par- 
liaments are  the  foundation  of  the  undue  influence  of  the 
crown.  This  influence  answers  every  purpose  of  arbitrary 
power  to  the  crown,  with  an  expence  and  oppression  to  the 
people,  which  would  be  unnecessary  in  an  arbitrary  govern- 
ment. The  best  of  our  ministers  find  it  the  easiest  and  most 
compendious  mode  of  conducting  the  King's  affairs;  and  all 
ministers  have  a  general  interest  in  adhering  to  a  system, 
which  of  itself  is  sufficient  to  support  them  in  office,  without 
any  assistance  from  personal  virtue,  popularity,  labour,  abili- 
ties, or  experience.  It  promises  every  gratification  to  ava- 
rice and  ambition,  and  secures  impunity.-— *»These  are 
truths  unquestionable. — If  they  make  no  impression,  it  is 
because  they  are  too  vulgar  and  notorious.  But  the  inatten- 
tion or  indifference  of  the  nation  has  continued  too  long. 
You  are  roused  at  last  to  a  sense  of  Your  danger. — The 
remedy  will  soon  be  in  your  power.  If  Junius  lives,  You 
shall  often  be  reminded  of  it.  If,  when  the  opportunity  pre- 
sents itself,  You  neglect  to  do  Your  duty  to  Yourselves  and 
to  posterity, — to  God  and  to  Your  country,  I  shall  have  one 
consolation  left,  in  common  with  the  meanest  and  basest  of 
mankind. — Civil  liberty  may  still  last  the  life  of 

JUNIUS. 


PREFACE. 


1  HE  encouragement  given  to  a  multitude  of  spurious, 
mangled  publications  of  the  letters  of  Junius,  persuades  me, 
that  a  complete  edition,  corrected  and  improved  by  the  au- 
thor, will  be  favourably  received.  The  printer  will  readily 
acquit  me  of  any  view  to  my  own  profit*.  I  undertake  this 
troublesome  task,  merely  to  serve  a  man  who  has  deserved 
well  of  me,  and  of  the  public;  and  who,  on  my  account,  has 
been  exposed  to  an  expensive,  tyrannical  prosecution.  For 
these  reasons,  I  give  to  Mr.  Henry  Sampson  Woodfall,  and 
to  him  alone,  my  right,  interest,  and  property  in  these  let- 
ters, as  fully  and  completely,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as 
an  author  can  possibly  convey  his  property  in  his  own  works 
to  another. 

This  edition  contains  all  the  letters  of  Junius,  Philo  Ju- 
nius, and  of  Sir  William  Draper  and  Mr.  Home  to  Junius, 
with  their  respective  dates,  and  according  to  the  order  in 
which  they  appeared  in  the  Public  Advertiserf.  The  auxili- 
ary part  of  Philo  Junius  was  indispensably  necessary  to  de- 
fend or  explain  particular  passages  in  Junius,  in  answer  to 
plausible  objections;  but  the  subordinate  character  is  never 
guilty  of  the  indecorum  of  praising  his  principal.  The  fraud 
was  innocent,  and  I  always  intended  to  explain  it:}:.  The 
notes  will  be  found  not  only  useful,  but  necessary.  Referen- 
ces to  facts  not  generally  known,  or  allusions  to  the  current 

*  See  Private  Letters,  No.  59.  and  note  appended  to  it.  Edit. 

f  From  this  order  there  are  two  or  three  deviations,  but  too  trivial  to  be 
worth  pointing  out     Edit. 

\  It  was,  in  point  of  fact,  publicly  avowed  by  the  author,  in  the  follow- 
ing notice  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser  October  20,  1771: 

"  We  have  the  author's  consent  to  say,  that  the  letters,  published  in  this 
paper  under  the  signature  of  PhVo  Junius,  are  written  by  Junius."  Edit. 


8  PREFACE. 

report  or  opinion  of  the  day,  are  in  a  little  time  unintelligible. 
Yet  the  reader  will  not  find  himself  overloaded  with  expla- 
nations. I  was  not  born  to  be  a  commentator,  even  upon  my 
own  works. 

It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  upon  the  liberty  of  the 
press.  The  daring  spirit,  by  which  these  letters  are  supposed 
to  be  distinguished,  seems  to  require  that  something  serious 
should  be  said  in  their  defence.  I  am  no  lawyer  by  profes- 
sion, nor  do  I  pretend  to  be  more  deeply  read,  than  every 
English  gentleman  should  be  in  the  laws  of  his  country.  If 
therefore  the  principles  I  maintain  are  trulv  constitutional, 
I  shall  not  think  myself  answered,  though  I  should  be  con- 
victed of  a  mistake  in  terms,  or  of  misapplying  the  language 
of  the  law.  I  speak  to  the  plain  understanding  of  the  people, 
and  appeal  to  their  honest,  liberal  construction  of  me. 

Good  men,  to  whom  alone  I  address  myself,  appear  to  me 
to  consult  their  piety  as  little  as  their  judgment  and  expe- 
rience, when  they  admit  the  great  and  essential  advantages 
accruing  to  society  from  the  freedom  of  the  press,  yet  in- 
dulge themselves  in  peevish  or  passionate  exclamations 
against  the  abuses  of  it.  Betraying  an  unreasonable  expecta- 
tion of  benefits,  pure  and  intire,  from  any  human  institution, 
they  in  effect  arraign  the  goodness  of  Providence,  and  con- 
fess that  they  are  dissatisfied  with  the  common  lot  of  human- 
ity. In  the  present  instance  they  really  create  to  their  own 
minds,  or  greatly  exaggerate  the  evil  they  complain  of.  The 
laws  of  England  provide,  as  effectually  as  any  human  laws 
can  do,  for  the  protection  of  the  subject,  in  his  reputation,  as 
well  as  in  his  person  and  property.  If  the  characters  of  pri- 
vate men  are  insulted  or  injured,  a  double  remedy  is  open  to 
them,  by  action  and  indictment.  If,  through  indolence,  false 
shame,  or  indifference,  they  will  not  appeal  to  the  laws  of 
their  country,  they  fail  in  their  duty  to  society,  and  are  unjust 
to  themselves.  If,  from  an  unwarrantable  distrust  of  the  in- 
tegrity of  juries,  they  would  wish  to  obtain  justice  by  any 
mode  of  proceeding,  more  summary  than  a  trial  by  then- 
peers,  I  do  not  scruple  to  affirm,  that  they  are  in  effect  greater 
enemies  to  themselves,  than  to  the  libeller  they  prosecute. 


PREFACE.  9 

With  regard  to  strictures  upon  the  characters  of  men  in 
office  and  the  measures  of  government,  the  case  is  a  little 
different.  A  considerable  latitude  must  be  allowed  in  the 
discussion  of  public  affairs,  or  the  liberty  of  the  press  will  be 
of  no  benefit  to  society.  As  the  indulgence  of  private  malice 
and  personal  slander  should  be  checked  and  resisted  by 
every  legal  means,  so  a  constant  examination  into  the  cha- 
racters and  conduct  of  ministers  and  magistrates  should  be 
equally  promoted  and  encouraged.  They,  who  conceive  that 
our  news  papers  are  no  restraint  upon  bad  men,  or  impedi- 
ment to  the  execution  of  bad  measures,  know  nothing  of  this 
country.  In  that  state  of  abandoned  servility  and  prostitu- 
tion, to  which  the  undue  influence  of  the  crown  has  reduced 
the  other  branches  of  the  legislature,  our  ministers  and  ma- 
gistrates have  in  reality  little  punishment  to  fear,  and  few 
difficulties  to  contend  with,  beyond  the  censure  of  the  press, 
and  the  spirit  of  resistance,  which  it  excites  among  the  peo- 
ple. While  this  censorial  power  is  maintained,  to  speak  in 
the  words  of  a  most  ingenious  foreigner,  both  minister 
and  magistrate  is  compelled,  in  almost  every  instance,  to 
choose  between  his  duty  and  his  reputation.  A  dilemma  of 
this  kind,  perpetually  before  him,  will  not  indeed  work  a 
miracle  upon  his  heart,  but  it  will  assuredly  operate,  in  some 
degree,  upon  his  conduct.  At  all  events,  these  are  not  times 
to  admit  of  any  relaxation  in  the  little  discipline  we  have 
left. 

But  it  is  alledged,  that  the  licentiousness  of  the  press  is 
carried  beyond  all  bounds  of  decency  and  truthj — that  our 
excellent  ministers  are  continually  exposed  to  the  public 
hatred  or  derision; — that,  in  prosecutions  for  libels  on  gov- 
ernment, juries  are  partial  to  the  popular  side;  and  that,  in 
the  most  flagrant  cases,  a  verdict  cannot  be  obtained  for  the 
King. — If  the  premises  were  admitted,  I  should  deny  the 
conclusion.  It  is  not  true  that  the  temper  of  the  times  has, 
in  general,  an  undue  influence  over  the  conduct  of  juries. 
On  the  contrary,  many  signal  instances  may  be  produced  of 
verdicts  returned  from  the  King,  when  the  inclinations  of 
the  people  led  stronglv  to  an  undistinguishing  opposition  to 

Vol.  I.  B 


10  PREFACE. 

government.  Witness  the  cases  of  Mr.  Wilkes  and  Mr.  Al- 
mon*.  In  the  late  prosecutions  of  the  printers  of  my  address 
to  a  great  personage,  the  juries  were  never  fairly  dealt  with. 
— Lord  Chief  Justice  Mansfield,  conscious  that  the  paper  in 
question  contained  no  treasonable  or  libellous  matter,  and 
that  the  severest  parts  of  it,  however  painful  to  the  King,  or 
offensive  to  his  servants,  were  strictly  true,  would  fain  have 
restricted  the  jury  to  the  finding  of  special  facts,  which,  as  to 
guilty  or  not  guilty,  were  merely  indifferent.  This  particular 
motive,  combined  with  his  general  purpose  to  contract  the 
power  of  juries,  will  account  for  the  charge  he  delivered  in 
WoodfaWs  trial j.  He  told  the  jury,  in  so  many  words,  that 

*  The  case  of  Wilkes  here  alluded  to  is  his  prosecution,  for  having 
written  an  obscene  parody  on  Pope's  Essay  on  Man,  which  he  called 
"  An  Essay  on  Woman."  Almon  was  prosecuted  merely  for  having  sold 
in  a  magazine  entitled  The  London  Museum,  which  he  did  not  print,  a 
transcript  of  Junius's  letter  to  the  King,  first  published  in  the  Public 
Advertiser,  and  thence  copied  into  a  variety  of  other  newspapers.  And 
the  result  was  a  verdict  against  him,  although  it  did  not  appear  to  the 
court  that  he  was  privy  to  the  sale,  or  even  knew  that  the  magazine,  sold 
at  his  shop,  contained  the  letter  to  the  King.  Edit. 

j-  Memorable  as  this  charge  is  on  various  accounts,  and  especially  as 
having  laid  the  foundation  for  a  very  warm  and  animated  discussion  both 
in  and  out  of  parliament,  it  is  very  extraordinary  that  it  is  no  where  re- 
ported in  our  senatorial  documents,  and  is  indeed  difficult  to  be  obtained 
from  any  other  quarter.  The  fact  is,  that  although  it  was  laid  by  Lord 
Mansfield  on  the  table,  in  the  house  of  lords,  when  summoned  at  his  re- 
quest to  take  it  into  consideration,  yet  as  he  did  not  make  any  express 
motion  upon  the  subject,  it  was  not  entered  into  the  journals,  and  was 
only  left  with  the  clerk  for  any  noble  lord  to  take  a  copy  of  it,  who  was 
desirous  of  doing  so.  The  reader,  therefore,  will  feel  gratified  by  being 
put  into  possession  of  the  charge,  together  with  Lord  Camden's  interro- 
gatories in  regard  to  it,  proposed  to  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  in  his  proper 
place  in  the  upper  house,  and  to  which  the  latter  did  not  chuse  to  make 
any  reply.  To  these  it  may  be  also  advantageous  to  subjoin  a  summary  of 
the  speeches  of  the  late  Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Burke  upon  the  same  subject, 
when  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons,  as  containing,  in  aconden- 
sed  form,  the  argument  of  the  opposite  sides  of  the  question.  Mr.  Fox,  it 
is  well  known,  was,  at  this  period,  in  favour  of  the  ministry;  but  the  po- 
litical error  he  then  laboured  under,  he  nobly  redeemed  a  few  years  after- 
wards, and  amply  atoned  for  to  the  public,  by  the  excellent  and  truly 
constitutional  bill  "to  remove  doubts  respecting  the  functions  of  juries  in 
cases  of  libel,"  introduced  into  the  senate  in  the  session  of  1791,  as  more 
particularly  noticed  in  another  part  of  this  work,  and  which,  by  his  inde- 
fatigable 


PREFACE.  11 

they  had  nothing  to  determine,  except  the  fact  of  printing 
and  publishing,  and  whether  or  no  the  blanks  or  innuendoes 
were  properly  filled  up  in  the  information; — but  that,  whether 
the  defendant  had  committed  a  crime  or  not,  was  no  matter 

fatigable  perseverance  was  at  length  carried  through  the  legislature,  has 
nullified  Lord  Mansfield's  doctrine,  and  set  the  important  question  com- 
pletely at  rest. 

Mr.  Woodfall,  as  a  party  concerned,  modestly  forbore  to  offer  any  state- 
ment of  this  celebrated  trial  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  in  consequence  of 
which  the  writer  is  obliged  to  avail  himself  of  the  following  extract, 
though  very  imperfectly  given,  from  a  contemporary  journal. 

.in  account  of  the  trial  at  Guildhall  of  the  original  publisher  of  jfimius's  Letter 

to  the  King. 

Yesterday  morning,  [June  13,  1770,  J  about  nine  o'clock,  came  on  before 
Lord  Mansfield,  in  the  Court  of  King's-bench  at  Guildhall,  the  trial  of 
Mr.  Woodfall,  the  original  printer  of  Junius's  letter  in  the  Public  Ad- 
vertiser of  December  19.  Only  seven  of  the  special  jury  attended,  viz. 
William  Bond,  foreman;  Peter  Cazalet,  Alexander  Peter  Allen,  Frede- 
rick Commerell,  Hermen  Meyer,  John  Thomas,  and  Barrington  Buggin. 

Upon  which  the  following  five  talesmen  were  taken  out  of  the  box,  viz. 
William  Hannard,  Paul  Verges,  William  Sibley,  William  Willet,  and 
William  Davis. 

The  trial  was  opened  by  Mr.  Wallis. 

Nathaniel  Crowder  swore  he  bought  the  paper  of  Mr.  Woodfall's  pub- 
lishing servant,  whom  he  named. 

Mr.  Harris  proved  that  the  duty  for  the  advertisements  and  stamps 
were  paid  by  Mr.  Woodfall.  And 

A  Clerk  of  Sir  John  Fielding's  proved,  by  a  receipt  from  Mr.  Woodfall, 
his  concern  in  and  for  the  paper. 

The  publication  and  direction  of  the  paper  by  Mr.  Woodfall  being  thus 
proved, 

Lord  Mansfield,  in  his  charge,  told  the  jury,  That  there  were  only  two 
points  for  their  consideration:  the  first  the  printing  and  publishing  the 
paper  in  question;  the  second,  the  sense  and  meaning  of  it:  That  as  to  the 
charges  of  its  being  malicious,  seditious,  &c.  they  were  inferences  in  law 
about  which  no  evidence  need  be  given,  any  more  than  that  part  of  an  in- 
dictment need  be  proved  by  evidence,  which  charges  a  man  with  being 
moved  by  the  instigation  of  the  Devil:  That  therefore  the  printing  and 
sense  of  the  paper  were  alone  what  the  jury  had  to  consider  of;  and  that 
if  the  paper  should  really  contain  no  breach  of  the  law,  that  was  a  matter 
which  might  afterwards  be  moved  in  arrest  of  judgment:  That  he  had  no 
evidence  to  sum  up  to  them,  as  the  defendant's  counsel  admitted  the 
printing  and  publication  to  be  well  proved:  That  as  to  the  sense,  they  had 
not  called  in  doubt  the  manner  in  which  the  dashes  in  the  paper  were 
tilled  up  in  the  record,  by  giving  any  other  sense  to  the  passages}  if  they 

hady 


12  PREFACE. 

of  consideration  to  twelve  men,  who  yet,  upon  their  oaths, 
were  to  pronounce  their  peer  guilty,  or  not  guilty.  When 
we  hear  such  nonsense  delivered  from  the  bench,  and  find  it 
supported  by  a  laboured  train  of  sophistry,  which  a  plain 

had,  the  jury  would  have  been  to  consider  which  application  was  the  true 
one,  that  charged  in  the  information,  or  suggested  by  the  defendant. 
That  the  jury  might  now  compare  the  paper  with  the  information:  That 
if  they  did  not  find  the  application  wrong,  they  must  find  the  defendant 
guilty;  and  if  they  did  find  it  wrong,  they  must  acquit  him:  That  this  was 
not  the  time  for  alleviation  or  aggravation,  that  being  for  future  consider- 
ation: That  every  subject  was  under  the  controul  of  the  law,  and  had  a 
right  to  expect  from  it  protection  for  his  person,  his  property,  and  his  good 
name:  That  if  any  man  offended  the  laws,  he  was  amenable  to  them,  and 
■was  not  to  be  censured  or  punished,  but  in  a  legal  course:  That  any  per- 
son libelled  had  a  right  either  to  bring  a  civil  or  a  criminal  prosecution: 
That  in  the  latter,  which  is  by  information  or  indictment,  it  is  immaterial 
whether  the  publication  be  false  or  true:  That  it  is  no  defence  to  say  it  is 
true,  because  it  is  a  breach  of  the  peace,  and  therefore  criminal;  but  in  a 
civil  prosecution,  it  is  a  defence  to  say  the  charges  in  the  publication  are 
true;  because  the  plaintiff  there  sues  only  for  a  pecuniary  satisfaction  to 
himself;  and  that  this  is  the  distinction  as  to  that  nature  of  defence. —  His 
Lordship  said,  he  was  afraid  it  was  too  true  that  few  characters  in  the 
kingdom  escaped  libels:  That  man}'  were  very  injuriously  treated — and  if 
so,  that  the  best  way  to  prevent  it  was  by  an  application  to  the  law,  which 
is  open  to  every  man:  That  the  liberty  of  the  press  consisted  in  every  man 
having  the  power  to  publish  his  sentiments  without  first  applying  for  a 
licence  to  any  one;  but  if  any  man  published  what  was  against  law,  he  did 
it  at  his  peril,  and  was  answerable  for  it  in  the  same  manner  as  he  who 
suffers  his  hand  to  commit  an  assault,  or  his  tongue  to  utter  blasphemy." 

Between  eleven  and  twelve  the  jury  withdrew;  at  four  the  court  ad- 
journed; and  a  little  after  nine  the  jury  waited  on  Lord  Mansfield  at  his 
house  in  Bloomsbury-square,  with  their  verdict,  which  was  Guilty  of 
printing  and  publishing  ONLY. 

This  charge  having  been  laid  upon  the  table  of  the  House  of  Lords,  De- 
cember 10,  1770,  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  the  following  questions  were 
put  to  him,  in  his  place,  by  Lord  Camden,  on  the  day  ensuing. 

1.  Does  the  opinion  mean  to  declare,  that  upon  the  general  issue  of 
Not  Guilty,  in  the  case  of  a  seditious  libel,  the  jury  have  no  right,  by  law, 
to  examine  the  innocence  or  criminality  of  the  paper,  if  they  think  fit, 
and  to  form  their  verdict  upon  such  examination? 

2.  Does  the  opinion  mean  to  declare,  that  in  the  case  abovementioned, 
when  the  jury  have  delivered  in  their  verdict,  Guilty,  that  this  verdict  has 
found  the  fact  only  and  not  the  law? 

3.  Is  it  to  be  understood  by  this  opinion,  that  if  the  jury  come  to  the 
bar,  and  say  that  they  find  the  printing  and  publishing,  but  that  the  paper 

is 


PREFACE.  13 

understanding  is  unable  to  follow,  and  which  an  unlearned 
jury,  however  it  may  shock  their  reason,  cannot  be  supposed 

is  no  libel,  that  in  that  case  the  jury  have  found  the  defendant  guilt) 
generally,  and  the  verdict  must  be  so  entered  up? 

4.  Whether  the  opinion  means  to  say,  that  if  the  judge,  after  giving  his 
opinion  of  the  innocence  or  criminality  of  the  paper,  should  leave  the  con- 
sideration of  that  matter,  together  with  the  printing  and  publishing,  to  the 
jury,  such  a  direction  would  be  contrary  to  law? 

5.  I  beg  leave  to  ask,  whether  dead  and  living  judges,  then  absent,  did 
declare  their  opinions  in  open  court,  and  whether  the  noble  Lord  has  any 
note  of  such  opinions? 

6.  Whether  they  declared  such  opinions,  after  solid  arguments,  or  upon 
any  point  judicially  before  them? 

To  these  queries  Lord  Mansfield  made  no  reply,  briefly  observing  that 
he  would  not  answer  interrogatories. 

The  subject  was  introduced  into  the  lower  house,  December  6,  1770, 
on  a  motion  made  by  Mr.  Serjeant  Glynn.  "  That  a  committe  should  be 
appointed  to  enquire  into  the  administration  of  criminal  justice,  and  the 
proceedings  of  the  judges  in  Westminster-hall,  particulai'ly  in  cases  re- 
lating to  the  Liberty  of  the  Press,  and  the  constitutional  power  and  duty 
of  juries." 

In  the  course  of  the  discussion,  the  speakers  on  both  sides  alluded  not 
only  to  the  charge  in  Mr.  Woodfall's  case,  but  also  to  Mr.  Baron  Smythe's 
conduct  in  trying  a  Scotch  Serjeant  at  Guildford,  which  will  be  found  more 
particularly  detailed  in  the  Editor's  note  to  Junius's  Letter  lxviii. 
Amongst  the  chief  speakers  on  this  occasion  were,  as  we  have  already 
observed,  on  the  side  of  the  ministry,  Mr.  Fox,  and  on  that  of  the  people, 
Mr.  Burke.  The  following  summary  of  their  argument,  which  in  truth 
contains  the  general  argument  of  the  rest,  is  extracted  from  a  pamphlet 
entitled  Vox  Scnatus,  printed  previous  to  the  contest  which  soon  afterwards 
ensued,  between  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Printers,  respecting  the 
publication  of  parliamentary  debates,  and  which,  in  a  great  measure,  led 
the  way  to  that  controversy.  The  speeches  in  this  pamphlet  were  altoge- 
ther reported  by  the  late  Mr.  Wm.  Woodfall,  whose  strength  of  memory, 
nice  accuracy  and  rigid  impartiality,  were  equally  subjects  of  admiration, 
and  held  in  the  highest  veneration,  by  the  members  of  both  houses  of  par- 
liament, to  whatever  party  they  might  belong,  during  the  many  years  that 
he  continued  to  exercise  his  talents  in  that  most  laborious,  and  we  trust 
we  may  add,  most  important  branch  of  public  duty. 

Mr.  Fox  spoke  as  follows:  — 

"We  are  told  by  the  abettors  of  this  motion,  that  jealousies,  murmurs, 
and  discontents  encrease  and  multiply  throughout  the  nation;  that  the 
people  are  under  terrible  apprehensions  that  the  law  is  perverted,  the  ju- 
ries are  deprived  of  their  constitutional  powers,  that  the  courts  of  justice 
are  not  sound  and  untainted;  in  a  word,  that  the  judges  have,  like  a  dozen 
of  monstrous  Patagoni  an  giants,  either  swallowed,  or  are  going  to  swallow 

uft 


14  PREFACE. 

qualified  to  refute,  can  it  be  wondered  that  they  should  re- 
turn a  verdict,  perplexed,  absurd,  or  imperfect? — Lord  Mans ■> 

up  both  law  and  gospel.  And  how  do  they  prove  the  truth  of  these  alle- 
gations? the  manner  is  pleasant  enough.  They  refer  us  to  their  own  libel- 
lous remonstrances,  and  to  those  infamous  lampoons  and  satires,  which 
they  have  taken  care  to  write  and  circulate.  They  modestly  substitute 
themselves  in  the  place  of  the  nation,  and  cull  their  own  complaints  the 
grievances  of  England.  Their  meaning  is  plain  enough,  and  we  under- 
stand perfectly  how  all  their  grievances  might  be  redressed.  For  my  part 
I  am  not  disposed  to  take  the  voice  of  a  miserable  faction  for  the  voice  of 
my  country.  Were  the  people  really  dissatisfied,  I  should  be  glad  to  know 
how  I  am  to  ascertain  the  reality  of  that  dissatisfaction?  I  must  freely 
confess,  that  I  know  no  other  way  but  that  of  consulting  this  House.  Here 
the  people  are  represented,  and  here  their  voice  expressed.  There  is  no 
other  criterion  but  the  majority  of  this  assembly,  by  which  we  can  judge 
of  their  sentiments.  This  man,  in  order  to  answer  one  purpose,  and  that 
man,  in  order  to  answer  another,  will  tell  you  that  a  general  cry  has  gone 
abroad  against  certain  men  and  measures,  but  will  you  be  so  credulous  as 
to  take  him  upon  his  word,  when  you  can  easily  penetrate  his  interested 
views  and  find  him  the  original  and  prime  mover  of  all  the  clamour?  I  can 
easily  trace  the  authors  of  the  outcry  raised  against  the  judges;  and  I 
would  point  them  out,  had  not  they,  as  well  as  their  selfish  ends,  been 
already  exposed  in  all  their  deformity.  Why  then,  should  we  hesitate  to 
put  a  negative  upon  a  question,  which  sprung  from  such  a  low  source? 
from  dirt  it  came,  and  to  dirt  let  it  return.  As  to  myself,  I  certainly  will, 
as  I  can  never  acknowledge  for  the  voice  of  the  nation,  what  is  not  echoed 
by  the  majority  of  the  house;  and  I  do  not  find  that  the  majority  of  us  en- 
tertain any  suspicions,  much  less  terrible  apprehensions,  of  the  judges; 
though,  if  there  were  any  just  foundation  for  complaint,  we  must  certain- 
ly have  been  better  informed  of  it  than  the  people. 

Indeed  if  the  adoption  of  this  enquiry  would  answer  any  good  purpose, 
1  should  not  be  such  a  violent  opposer,  convinced  as  I  am  that  the  judges 
are  blameless.  But  I  am  fully  persuaded,  that  would  not  be  the  case.  For 
as  I  have  shown,  it  would  be  an  attempt  to  remove  discontents  which  do 
not  exist  but  among  those  who  have  generated,  fostered,  and  reared  them 
up  to  their  present  magnitude,  and  would  not,  therefore,  be  satisfied,  though 
Justice,  though  Astrea  herself,  should  descend  naked  from  heaven  to  ex- 
culpate our  judges.  And  what  is  more,  it  would,  on  their  own  principles, 
prove  fruitless  and  nugatory,  even  if  we  suppose  the  people  to  be  really 
discontented.  For  what  have  they  been  doing  for  these  two  last  years,  but 
ringing  constantly  in  our  ears  the  contempt  in  which  we  are  held  by  the 
people?  have  they  not  made  these  walls  echo  with  the  terms  of  reproach, 
which  they  alledged  were  cast  upon  us  by  men  of  every  degree,  by  high 
and  low,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned?  were  we  not,  and  are  we 
not  still,  according  to  their  account,  held  in  universal  detestation  and  ab- 
horrence? does  not  the  whole  empire,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  reckon 

us 


PREFACE.  15 

field  has  not  yet  explained  to  the  world,  why  he  accepted  of 
a  verdict,  which  the  court  afterwards  set  aside  as  illegal, 

us  equally  weak  and  wicked?  in  a  word,  are  we  not  become  an  abomina- 
tion in  the  land?  such  is  the  language  of  the  minority.  How  can  they,  with 
a  serious  face,  desire  us  to  undertake  this  enquiry,  in  order  to  satisfy  the 
people?  the  people,  if  their  former  assertions  are  to  be  credited,  will  re- 
ceive no  good  at  our  hands.  They  will  regard  what  we  say  no  more  than  a 
knot  of  coffee-house  politicians.  We  are  too  ridiculous  as  well  as  odious, 
to  do  any  thing  that  will  appear  gracious  in  their  eyes.  What  is  the  con- 
clusion to  be  drawn?  let  us  satisfy  ourselves.  Let  us  act  according  to  the 
dictates  of  honour  and  conscience,  and  be  at  peace  with  our  own  minds. 
It  is  thus  that  we  shall  sooner  or  later  regain  the  confidence  of  our  consti- 
tuents, if  we  have  lost  it;  and  not  by  humouring,  as  foolish  nurses  humour 
great  lubberly  boys,  the  wayward  whims  of  a  misled  multitude.  The  cha- 
racteristic of  this  house,  should  be  a  firm  and  manly  steadiness,  an  unsha- 
ken perseverance  in  the  pursuit  of  great  and  noble  plans  of  general  utility, 
and  not  a  wavering  inconstant  fluctuation  of  counsels  regulated  by  the 
shifting  of  the  popular  breeze.  If  we  are  not  to  judge  for  ourselves,  but  to 
be  ever  at  the  command  of  the  vulgar,  and  their  capricious  shouts  and  his- 
ses, I  cannot  see  what  advantage  the  nation  can  reap  from  a  representa- 
tive body,  which  they  might  not  have  reaped  from  a  tumultuous  assembly 
of  themselves,  collected  at  random  on  Salisbury  Plain  or  Runningmede. 
And  it  is  very  well  known,  that  such  an  irregular  and  riotous  crowd  are 
but  very  ill  qualified  to  judge  truly  of  their  own  interest,  or  to  pursue  it, 
even  when  they  form  a  right  judgment.  They  are  but  very  unsteady  guar- 
dians of  liberty  and  property.  Do  you  want  proofs?  consult  the  English 
history,  and  you  will  find  them  in  every  page." 

Mr.  Burke,  in  answer  to  Mr.  Fox,  and  in  support  of  the  motion,  spoke 
as  follows: — 

"  The  subject  of  our  present  debate,  is  in  my  opinion,  a  matter  of  a  very 
serious  and  important  nature;  and  it  is  not  therefore  to  be  dismissed  with- 
out mature  deliberation.  The  honourable  gentleman  who  introduced  it, 
boldly  arraigns  the  general  conduct  of  our  courts  of  justice;  and  the  gen- 
tleman who  seconded  him,  as  boldly  arraigns  the  conduct  of  a  particular 
judge.  Either  charge  should  be  alone  sufficient  to  excite  our  closest  atten- 
tion. What  effect  ought  then  both  in  conjunction  to  produce?  they  ought 
to  impel  us,  if  not  to  enquiry,  at  least  to  a  minute  and  elaborate  discussion. 
j   For  what  has  the  mover  of  the  question  arraigned?  he  has  arraigned  the 
1  general  principles  of  jurisprudence  now  adopted  by  our  judges,  and  has, 
I  in  his  ivay,  proved  them  not  only  unconstitutional,  but  illegal.  He  has  laid 
i  before  you  two  heads  of  accusation,  two  points,  in  which  he  conceives  the 
judges  have  not  done  their  duty.  These  two  points  are  a  rule  of  law  and  a 
rule  of  evidence  authorised,  as  he  asserts,  neither  by  precedent  nor  by  the 
i  spirit  of  liberty.  First  he  tells  you  that  judges  act  illegally  and  unconsti- 
tutionally, in  directing  juries  not  to  tuke  cognizance  of  the  malice  or  inno- 
cence 


16  PREFACE. 

and  which,  as  it  took  no  notice  of  the  innuendoes,  did  not  even 
correspond  with  his  own  charge.  If  he  had  known  his  duty 

cence  of  a  culprit's  intention  in  cases  of  libels;  and  secondly  he  tells  you, 
that  in  cases  of  libels,  they  act  illegally  and  unconstitutionally  in  acquaint- 
ing the  jury  that  the  law  infers  guilt  from  the  prima  facie  evidence;  a  posi- 
tion by  which  masters  become,  even  in  criminal  cases,  responsible  for  the 
conduct  of  their  servants. 

These  are  the  doctrines  which  he  arraigns,  and  which  are  now  in  issue 
before  you.  He  asserts  that  they  are  not  sanctioned  by  precedent.  But 
here  his  reading  seems  not  to  have  been  sufficiently  extensive.  There  are 
precedents,  and  those  too,  I  fear,  of  too  much  weight  and  authority.  You 
have  heard  Lord  Chief  Justice  Raymond's  words  quoted,  and  nothing  can 
he  more  explicit,  than  they  are  in  favour  of  these  doctrines.  What!  you 
will  say  can  these  be  the  doctrines  of  Lord  Raymond,  and  yet  be  unknown 
to  the  learned  Serjeant?  Why  it  is  impossible.  A  case  so  much  in  point 
could  never  escape  his  industry  and  learning:  and  to  render  the  thing  cer- 
tain, he  gives  the  assertion  a  flat  contradiction.  But  I  say  that  it  is  not  only 
possible  and  probable,  but  certain;  and  let  me  tell  you,  that  the  way  to 
overturn  the  credit  of  grave  and  universally  esteemed  historians,  is  not  to 
give  them  a  flat  contradiction.  The  most  positive  asseverations  of  a  modern 
go  for  nothing,  when  they  are  unsupported  by  the  contradictory  testimony 
of  some  ancient  contemporary  author.  Was  this  heresy  then  adopted  as  an 
article  of  faith,  by  Raymond?  Yes,  sir,  it  was;  the  fact  is  too  clear,  too 
well  known,  to  bear  dispute.  Nor  was  it  an  innovation  introduced  by  that 
great  judge.  No;  he  received  it  as  a  legacy  from  still  greater  judges,  and 
among  the  rest,  from  the  very  bulwark  of  the  revolution,  Lord  Holt. 

But  what  though  this  opinion  has  been  sanctioned  by  a  series  of  prece- 
dents; what  though  it  has  been  embraced  by  men  as  deep  skilled  in  law 
and  casuistry  as  remarkable  for  inflexible  patriotism;  havenotthe  greatest 
lawyers,  the  profoundest  casuists,  and  the  staunchest  patriots  erred?  Why 
then  should  the  judges  be  thought  exempted  from  the  common  lot  of  hu- 
manity? Why  should  they  be  deemed  infallible  more  than  other  mortals? 
believe  me,  the  wisdom  of  the  whole  nation  can  see  farther  than  the  sages 
of  Westminster  Hall.  In  a  constitutional  point,  like  this,  the  collective 
knowledge  and  penetration  of  the  people  at  large  are  more  to  be  depend- 
ed on  than  the  boasted  discernment  of  all  the  bar*.  The  reason  is  clear. 
Their  eves  are  not  dazzled  by  the  prospect  of  an  opposite  interest.  The 
crown  has  no  lure  sufficiently  tempting  to  make  them  forget  themselves 
and  the  general  good. 

Why  then  should  not  we  on  this  occasion,  listen  to  their  voice,  as  it  is 
heard  sufficiently  loud  and  distinct?  because,  forsooth,  they  have  no  voice! 
because  their  sentiments  are  only  to  be  gathered  from  the  determinations 
of  the  majority  of  tins  House!  because  after  a  general  election  is  closed,  the) 
have  no  legal  existence,  and  have  therefore  no  other  mouth  but  that  of 
their  representatives!  Strange  doctrine!  What  then  is  become  of  petition- 
ing' Are  they  not  legally  entitled  to  that  right?  You  cannot  deny  it  with- 
out 


PREFACE,  17 

he  should  have  sent  the  jury  back. — I  speak  advisedly,  and 
am  well  assured  that  no  lawyer  of  character,  in  Westminster- 
hall,  will  contradict  me.  To  shew  the  falsehood  of  Lord 
Mansfield's  doctrine,  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  the  me- 

out  denying  the  authority  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  How  then  can  you  pretend 
that  they  have  no  legal  voice,  but  that  of  their  representatives!  they  have 
both  a  real  and  a  legal  voice,  and  they  have  uttered  that  voice.  Consult  the 
History  of  the  reign  of  George  the  third.  In  that  performance,  which  will  be  an 
everlasting  monument  of  the  folly,  incapacity,  and  pernicious  politics  of  our 
late  and  present  ministers,  you  will  find  it  demonstrated,  that  the  majority 
of  Englishmen  have  petitioned  the  King,  and  have  consequently  expressed 
their  own  sentiments  by  their  own  mouth,  without  the  intervention  of 
their  deputies.  By  what  rule  then  does  the  majority  of  this  House  square 
its  conduct,  when  it  acts  in  direct  opposition  to  the  majority  of  the  people? 
by  that  rule  of  arithmetic,  which  by  its  almighty  fiat,  overturned  the  laws 
of  nature,  decreed  296  to  be  greater  than  1146,  gave  us  Colonel  Luttrell 
for  John  Wilkes,  a  cuckoo  in  a  magpy's  nest  to  suck  its  eggs. 

That  there  should  be  found  gentlemen,  who  would  annihilate  the  peo- 
ple, and  acknowledge  no  other  voice  but  that  of  this  House,  is  to  me  not 
at  all  surprising!  because  the  conduct  of  the  most  violent  sticklers  for  this 
doctrine,  has  not  deserved  much  applause  or  favour  from  them.  But  that 
they  should  have  renounced  reason  and  common  sense,  so  far  as  to  main- 
tain that  the  majority  of  this  assembly  is  the  only  organ,  by  which  their 
sentiments  can  be  expressed,  is  to  me  truly  surprising:  for  where  in  the 
name  of  wonder,  should  the  House  acquire  the  necessary  knowledge  or 
intelligence?  is  it  by  turning  over  these  musty  volumes,  or  by  rummaging 
these  gaudy  boxes  which  lie  on  your  table?  no;  they  contain  none  of  these 
mysteries.  How  then  are  they  to  be  explored?  Is  there  any  virtue  or  in- 
spiration in  these  benches  or  cushions,  by  which  they  are  communicated? 
or  does  the  echo  of  these  walls  whisper  the  secret  in  your  ears?  No;  but 
the  echo  of  every  other  wall,  the  murmur  of  every  stream,  the  shouts,  ay, 
and  the  hoots  and  hisses  of  every  street  in  the  nation  ring  it  in  your  ears, 
and  deafen  you  with  their  din.  Deafen  you  did  I  say?  alas!  you  were  deaf 
before,  or  rather  dead,  else  you  would  have  heard;  for  their  voice  is  loud 
enough  to  waken  almost  the  dead.  For  shame,  gentlemen,  let  us  hear  no 
more  such  weak  reasonings  and  sophistical  refinements.  Far  from  pro- 
ducing conviction,  they  cannot  even  extort  a  smile,  except  peradventure 
at  the  author,  who  resembles  a  hunter,  that  would  catch  an  elephant  in 
toils  made  of  cobweb.  The  people  have  a  voice  of  their  own,  and  it  must, 
nay  it  will  be  sooner  or  later  heard;  and  I,  as  in  duty  bound,  will  always 
exert  every  nerve,  and  every  power,  of  which  I  am  master,  to  hasten  the 
completion  of  so  desirable  an  event.  My  reverence  for  the  judges,  against 
whom  the  popular  cry  is  now  so  loud,  will  not  deter  me;  because  I  know 
all  judges  are  but  men.  Not  only  former  judges,  but  juries  have  erred. 
Why  not  the  present?  Yes,  sir,  juries  have  erred,  and  they  may  err  again. 
When  they  do,  I  shall  be  as  ready  to  enquire  into  their  conduct  as  I  am 
Vol.  I.  C  now 


18  PREFACE. 

rits  of  the  paper  which  produced  the  trial.  If  every  line  of 
it  were  treason,  his  charge  to  the  jury  would  still  be  false, 
absurd,  illegal,  and  unconstitutional.  If  I  stated  the  merits 
of  my  letter  to  the  King,  /should  imitate  Lord  Mansfield, 

now  into  that  of  the  judges.  Gentlemen  may  talk  of  their  great  respect 
for  juries,  and  their  readiness  to  acquiesce  in  their  determinations;  but  I 
am  not  disposed  to  be  so  complaisant,  I  will  make  no  man  nor  any  set  of 
men  a  compliment  of  the  constitution.  It  is  too  valuable  an  inheritance  to 
be  so  lightly  relinquished.  When  the  actions  of  juries  are  praiseworthy, 
let  them  be  applauded;  when  they  are  criminal,  let  them  be  punished. 
Popularity  should  not  be  bought  at  so  high  a  price.  For  my  own  part  let 
the  malicious  and  the  ungenerous  say  what  they  will,  I  am  a  blind  follower 
of  no  man,  nor  a  bond  slave  to  any  party.  I  have  always  acted  according 
to  the  best  information  of  my  judgment,  and  the  clear  dictates  of  my  con- 
science. On  this  occasion  I  solemnly  protest  before  God,  that  I  entertain 
no  personal  enmity  against  any  man,  nor  have  I  any  interested  schemes  to 
promote.  My  sole  object  in  supporting  the  proposed  enquiry  is  the  public 
welfare  and  the  acquittal  of  the  judges,  for  I  am  satisfied  that  an  acquit- 
tal will  be  the  consequence.  In  acting  thus  I  think  myself  their  best 
friend;  because  no  other  plan  will  clear  their  character.  Till  this  step  is 
taken,  in  vain  do  they  pretend  to  superior  sanctity:  in  vain  do  some  gentle- 
men tread  their  halls  as  holy  ground,  or  reverence  their  courts  as  the 
temples  of  the  divinity.  To  the  people  they  appear  the  temples  of  idols, 
and  false  oracles,  or  rather  as  the  dwellings  of  truth  and  justice,  con- 
verted into  dens  of  thieves  and  robbers.  For  what  greater  robbers  can 
there  be,  than  those  who  rob  men  of  their  laws  and  liberties?  No  man  has 
a  greater  veneration  than  I  have  for  the  doctors  of  the  law;  and  it  is  for 
that  reason  that  I  would  thus  render  their  characters  pure  and  unsullied 
as  the  driven  snow.  But  will  any  of  you  pretend  that  this  is  at  present  the 
case?  are  not  their  temples  profaned?  has  not  pollution  entered  them,  and 
penetrated  into  the  holy  of  holies?  Are  not  the  priests  suspected  of  being 
no  better  than  those  of  Bell  and  the  Dragon,  or  rather  of  being  worse  than 
those  of  Baal?  and  has  not  therefore  the  fire  of  the  people's  wrath  almost 
consumed  them?  The  lightning  has  pierced  the  sanctuary,  and  rent  the 
veil  of  their  temple  from  the  top  even  to  the  bottom.  Nothing  is  whole, 
nothing  is  sound.  The  ten  tables  of  the  law  are  shattered  and  splintered. 
The  ark  of  the  covenant  is  lost,  and  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  uncircum- 
cised.  Both  they  and  ye  are  become  an  abomination  unto  the  Lord.  In 
order  to  wash  away  your  sins,  let  Moses  and  the  prophets  ascend  Mount 
Sinai,  and  bring  us  down  the  second  table  of  the  law  in  thunder  and  light- 
nings; for  in  thunder  and  lightnings  the  constitution  was  first,  and  must 
now  be  established.  Let  the  judges  mount  up  to  the  source  of  precedents 
and  decisions,  and  trace  the  law  clear  and  unpolluted  along  the  stream  of 
time,  and  the  silent  lapse  of  years.  Let  them  march  in  procession  to  this 
house,  ushered  in  by  along  train  of  precedents  and  opinions,  and  lay  them 
all  in  a  bundle  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  they 

stand 


PREFACE.  19 

and*  travel  out  of  the  record.  When  laxv  and  reason 
speak  plainly,  we  do  not  want  authority  to  direct  our  under- 
standings. Yet,  for  the  honour  of  the  profession,  I  am  con- 
tent to  oppose  one  lawyer  to  another,  especially  when  it  hap- 

stand  justified.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  you  stand  justified.  In  vain  do 
you  trust  to  the  virtue  of  that  furred  gown,  or  to  the  magic  of  that  bauble, 
as  Cromwell  truly  called  it.  They  confer  neither  real  power,  nor,  what  is  of- 
ten its  parent,  a  fair  character.  These  desirable  possessions  are  acquired 
by  an  upright  ronduct,  and  the  confidence  of  the  people."  Edit. 

*  The  following  quotation  from  a  speech  delivered  by  Lord  Chatham  on 
the  eleventh  of  December,  1770,  is  taken  with  exactness.  The  reader 
will  find  it  curious  in  itself,  and  very  fit  to  be  inserted  here.  "  My  Lords, 
the  verdict,  given  in  YVoodfaU's  trial,  was  guilty  of  printing  and  publishing 
only;  upon  which  two  motions  were  made  in  court; — one,  in  arrest  of 
judgment,  by  the  defendant's  counsel,  grounded  upon  the  ambiguity  of  the 
verdict; — the  other,  by  the  counsel  for  the  crown,  for  a  rule  upon  the  de- 
fendant, to  shew  cause,  why  the  verdict  should  not  be  entered  up  accord- 
ing to  the  legal  import  of  the  words.  On  both  motions,  a  rule  was  granted, 
and  soon  after  the  matter  was  argued  before  the  court  of  King's  Bench. 
The  noble  judge,  when  he  delivered  the  opinion  of  the  court  upon  the  ver- 
dict, went  regularly  through  the  whole  of  the  proceedings  at  Nisi  Prius, 
as  well  the  evidence  that  had  been  given,  as  his  own  charge  to  the  jury. 
This  proceeding  would  have  been  very  proper,  had  a  motion  been  made  of 
either  side  for  a  new  trial,  because  either  a  verdict  given  contrary  to  evi- 
dence, or  an  improper  charge  by  the  judge  at  J\'is>  Prius,  is  held  to  be  asuffi- 
cient  ground  for  granting  a  new  trial.  But  when  a  motion  is  made  in  arrest 
of  judgment,  or  for  establishing  the  verdict,  by  entering  it  up  according  to 
the  legal  import  of  the  words,  it  must  be  on  the  ground  of  something  ap- 
pearing on  the  face  of  the  record;  and  the  court,  in  considering  whether  the 
verdict  shall  be  established  or  not,  are  so  confined  to  the  record,  that  they 
cannot  take  notice  of  any  thing  that  does  not  appear  on  the  face  of  it;  in 
the  legal  phrase,  they  cannot  travel  out  of  the  record.  The  noble  judge  did 
travel  out  of  the  record,  and  I  affirm  that  his  discourse  was  irregular,  ex- 
trajudicial, and  unprecedented.  His  apparent  motive,  for  doing  what  he 
knew  to  be  wrong,  was,  that  he  might  have  an  opportunity  of  telling  the 
public  extrajudicially,  that  the  other  three  judges  concurred  in  the  doc- 
trine laid  down  in  his  charge."  Author. 

The  opinion  of  the  court  here  referred  to,  was  as  follows;  and  we  give 
it  as  an  extraordinary  dictum,  not  readily  to  be  met  with  in  the  present 
day.  It  was  delivered  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  Nov.  20,  1770. 

"This  matter  comes  on  before  the  court  upon  two  rules,  which  have 
been  obtained;  the  one  by  the  defendant's  counsel,  to  stay  the  entering  up 
the  interlocutory  jugdment  in  this  cause;  the  other  by  the  Attorney  Gene- 
ral, to  tnter  up  the  judgment  according  to  the  legal  import  of  the  verdict. 
I  nsidering  these  rules,  we  are  naturally  led  to  begin  with  the  last,  be- 
i-ause  the  last  may  decide  the  former;  and  in  doing  this,  it  will  be  previously 

necessarv 


20  PREFACE. 

pens  that  the  King's  Attorney  General  has  virtually  disclaim- 
ed the  doctrine  by  which  the  Chief  Justice  meant  to  insure 
success  to  the  prosecution.  The  opinion  of  the  plaintiff's 
counsel,  (however   it  may   be   otherwise   insignificant)   is 

necessary  to  state  a  report  of  the  trial.  'The  defendant  was  tried  for 
the  printing  and  publishing,  in  a  paper  called  the  Public  Advertiser,  a 
libel  signed  Junius;  and  in  the  information  the  tenor  of  the  libel  was  set 
forth,  with  innuendoes,  to  complete  the  blanks,  and  with  the  usual 
epithets.  (1.)  The  first  witness,  Crowder,  proved  the  buying  of  the  paper, 
which  was  produced,  and  twelve  others,  at  the  defendant's  printing-house, 
of  his  servant.  (2.)  Harris  proved  payments  at  the  stamp-office,  by  the 
defendant,  for  the  Public  Advertiser,  and  that  the  duty  for  the  stamp 
upon  this  paper  was  paid  by  the  defendant's  servant.  (3.)  Lee,  Sir  John 
Fielding's  clerk,  proved  several  payments  to  the  defendant  for  advertise- 
ments in  the  Public  Advertiser,  and  produced  his  receipt.'  The  proof 
upon  the  trial  was  clear,  and  not  controverted  by  the  defendant's  counsel, 
who  called  no  witnesses.  They  rested  their  defence  in  objecting  to  some 
of  the  innuendoes,  but  principally  applied  to  the  jury  to  convince  them, 
that  the  paper  was  innocent,  and  that  some  of  the  epithets  in  the  informa- 
tion, did  not  apply  to  the  intention  of  the  defendant.  No  fact,  in  case  the 
paper  be  innocent,  can  make  the  publication  a  subject  of  guilt;  and  if  the 
jury  find  it  so,  the  defendant  may  have  advantage  of  its  innocence  by  ar- 
rest of  judgment  in  this  court;  but  that  is  not  any  question  here.  Nor  is 
this  a  case,  like  some  of  those,  where  a  publication  of  a  paper  may  be  justi- 
fied, from  particular  circumstances.  I  directed  the  jury,  that  if  they  be- 
lieved the  innuendoes,  as  to  persons  and  tilings,  to  have  been  properly 
filled  up  in  the  information,  and  to  be  the  true  meaning  of  the  paper,  and 
if  they  gave  credit  to  the  witnesses,  they  must  find  the  defendant  guilty; 
for,  if  they  believed  them,  there  is  no  doubt  but  there  was  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  the  defendant's  printing  and  publishing.  If  the  jury  were  obliged 
to  determine,  whether  the  paper  was  in  law  a  libel  or  no,  or  to  judge 
whether  it  was  criminal,  or  to  what  degree,  or  if  they  were  to  require 
proofs  of  a  criminal  intention,  then  this  direction  was  wrong.  I  told  them, 
as  I  have  always  done  before,  that  whether  a  libel  or  not,  was  a  mere 
question  of  law,  arising  out  of  the  record;  and  that  all  the  epithets  inserted 
in  the  information,  were  also  formal  inferences  of  law.  A  general  verdict 
of  the  jury,  finds  only  what  the  law  implies  from  the  fact.  There  is  no 
necessary  proof  of  malice  to  be  made;  for  that  is  scarce  possible  to  be 
produced.  The  law  implies,  from  the  fact  of  publication,  a  criminal  intent. 
The  jury  stayed  out  a  long  while — many  hours — and  at  last  delivered  in 
their  verdict  at  my  house  (the  objection  to  its  being  out  of  the  city  being 
cared  by  consent.)  To  the  usual  question  of  the  officer,  the  foreman  an- 
swered in  these  words,  Guilty  of  printing  and  publishing  only.  The  officer 
has  entered  up  the  words  literally,  without  so  much  as  adding  the  usual 
words  of  reference  to  connect  the  sense.  An  affidavit  of  one  of  the  jury 
has  been  attempted  to  be  laid  before  the  court  by  the  defendant's  counsel; 

but 


PREFACE.  21 

weighty  in  the  scale  of  the  defendant. — My  Lord  Chief  Jus- 
tice De  Grey,  who  filed  the  information  ex  officio,  is  directly 
with  me.  If  he  had  concurred  in  Lord  Mansfield's  doctrine, 
the  trial  must  have  been  a  very  short  one.  The  facts  were 

but  we  are  all  of  opinion  that  it  cannot  be  received. — Such  affidavit  can 
only  be  admitted  in  motion  for  a  new  trial,  where  there  is  a  doubt  upon 
the  words  in  which  the  verdict  was  delivered,  or  upon  the  judge's  notes 
of  the  evidence:  but  an  affidavit  of  a  juryman  cannot  be  admitted  to  ex- 
plain or  assert,  what  he  thought,  or  intended,  at  the  time  of  giving  in  the 
verdict.  The  motion  of  the  Attorney  General  divides  itself  into  two  parts; 
(1.)  the  first,  to  fill  up  the  finding  of  the  jury,  with  the  usual  words  of  re- 
ference, so  as  to  connect  the  verdict  with  the  information.  The  omission 
of  these  words,  we  are  of  opinion,  is  a  technical  mistake  of  the  clerk,  and 
may  be  now  supplied.  (2.)  The  second  head  of  argument,  is  to  omit  the 
word  only  in  the  entry  of  the  verdict.  This  we  are  all  of  opinion  cannot  be 
done;  the  word  only  must  stand  in  the  verdict.  No  reason  can  be  urged 
for  omitting  the  word  only,  but  what  goes  to  prove  that  it  adds  nothing  to 
the  sense  of  the  verdict.  If  this  word  was  omitted,  the  verdict  would  then 
be,  guilty  of  printing  and  publishing,  which  is  a  general  verdict  of  guilty; 
for  there  is  no  other  charge  in  the  information,  but  printing  and  publish- 
ing, and  that  alone  the  jury  had  to  enquire.  In  the  case  of  the  King  and 
Williams,  for  the  North  Briton,  the  jury  found  the  defendant  guilty  of 
printing  and  publishing.  The  officer  entered  up  the  verdict  guilty  gene- 
rally: the  defendant  received  the  sentence  of  this  court,  and  no  objection 
was  taken  by  his  counsel.  Where  there  are  more  charges  in  an  informa- 
tion than  one,  the  finding  the  defendant  guilty  of  printing  and  publishing 
only,  would  be  an  acquittal  of  the  other  charges;  but  here  the  jury  had 
nothing  else  to  find.  They  found  him  guilty  of  printing  and  publishing 
only,  which  was  all  of  which  they  were  to  find  him  guilty,  being  the  only 
crime  with  which  he  was  charged.  We  are  all  of  opinion,  that  my  direc- 
tion to  the  jury  is  right,  and  according  to  law;  the  positions  contained  in  it 
never  were  doubted;  it  never  has  been,  nor  is  it  now  complained  of,  in 
this  court.  There  clearly  can  be  no  judgment  of  acquittal,  because  the 
fact  found  by  the  jury  is  the  only  question  they  had  to  try.  The  single 
doubt  that  remains,  is  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  only.  It  would  be  im- 
proper now  to  make  a  question  of  the  law,  as  I  lay  it  down.  In  all  the 
reports  which  I  have  made  upon  trials  for  libels,  where  my  direction  has 
been  uniformly  the  same,  the  bar  may  remember  the  dead,  and  the  living 
who  are  now  absent,  all  to  have  concurred  in  agreeing,  that  it  was  law 
thus  to  direct  the  jury  in  matter  of  libel.  Taking  then  the  law  to  be  thus, 
the  only  question  is,  whether  any  meaning,  which  will  affect  the  verdict, 
can  be  put  upon  the  word  only,  as  it  stands  upon  this  record.  If  the  jurv 
meant  to  say,  they  did  not  find  the  paper  a  libel,  or  the  intent  of  the  de- 
fendant to  be  criminal  in  publishing  it,  or  that  they  did  not  find  the  truth 
and  application  of  the  epithets  in  the  information,  all  this  would  have 
vitiated  the  verdict;  for  it  would  have  been  entering  into  matters  not  be» 


22  PREFACE. 

either  admitted  by  WoodfalVs  counsel,  or  easily  proved  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  jury.  But  Mr.  De  Grey,  far  from  thinking 
he  should  acquit  himself  of  his  duty  by  barely  proving  the 
facts,  entered  largely,  and  I  confess  not  without  ability,  into 
the  demerits  of  the  paper,  which  he  called  a  seditions  libel. 
He  dwelt  but  lightly  upon  those  points,  which,  (according  to 
Lord  Mansfield)  were  the  only  matter  of  consideration  to 
the  jury.  The  criminal  intent,  the  libellous  matter,  the  per- 
nicious tendency  of  the  paper  itself,  were  the  topics  on  which 
he  principally  insisted,  and  of  which,  for  more  than  an  hour, 
he  tortured  his  faculties  to  convince  the  jury.  If  he  agreed 
in  opinion  with  Lord  Mansfield,  his  discourse  was  imperti- 
nent, ridiculous,  and  unseasonable.  But,  understanding  the 
law  as  I  do,  what  he  said  was  at  least  consistent  and  to  the 
purpose. 

If  any  honest  man  should  still  be  inclined  to  leave  the  con- 
struction of  libels  to  the  court,  I  would  intreat  him  to  con- 
sider what  a  dreadful  complication  of  hardships  he  imposes 
upon  his  fellow-subject — In  the  first  place,  the  prosecution 
commences  by  information  of  an  officer  of  the  crown,  not  by 
the  regular  constitutional  mode  of  indictment  before  a  grand 
jury. — As  the  fact  is  usually  admitted,  or  in  general  can 
easily  be  proved,  the  office  of  the  petty  jury  is  nugatory. — 
The  court  then  judges  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  offence, 
and  determines  ad  arbitrium,  the  quantum  of  the  punish- 
ment, from  a  small  fine  to  a  heavy  one,  to  repeated  whipping* 
to  pillory,  and  unlimited  imprisonment.  Cutting  off  ears  and 
noses  might  still  be  inflicted  by  a  resolute  judge;  but  I  will 
be  candid  enough  to  suppose  that  penalties,  so  apparently 
shocking  to  humanity,  would  not  be  hazarded  in  these  times. 

fore  them.  But  if  they  meant  to  say,  that  they  did  not  find  the  meaning' 
put  upon  the  innuendoes,  we  should  enter  up  judgment  of  acquittal;  hut 
this  would  be  contradictory  to  the  former  part  of  their  verdict.  It  is  im- 
possible to  say  with  certainty,  what  they  meant.  Possibly  (hey  meant 
differently,  and  some  of  them  might  intend  not  to  find  the  whole  sensi.  put 
upon  the  innuendoes.  This  would  be  the  most  favourable  supposition  for 
the  defendant,  to  which  the  Judges  will  always  lean  But  if  a  doubt  unses 
on  the  import  of  the  verdict,  the  Court  should  grant  a  venire  facias  de  novo, 
which  is  in  their  power  to  do,  when  a  verdict  o.f  acquittal  has  not  been 
found  for  the  defendant."  Edit. 


PREFACE.  23 

— In  all  other  criminal  prosecutions,  the  jury  decides  upon 
the  fact  and  the  crime  in  one  word,  and  the  court  pronounces 
a  certain  sentence,  which  is  the  sentence  of  the  law,  not  of 
the  judge.  If  Lord  Mansfield' 's  doctrine  be  received,  the  jury- 
must  either  find  a  verdict  of  acquittal,  contrary  to  evidence, 
(which,  I  can  conceive,  might  be  done  by  very  conscientious 
men,  rather  than  trust  a  fellow-creature  to  Lord  Mansfield' '$ 
mercy)  or  they  must  leave  to  the  court  two  offices,  never  but 
in  this  instance  united,  of  finding  guilty,  and  awarding  pun- 
ishment. 

But,  says  this  honest  Lord  Chief  Justice,  "  If  the  paper 
be  not  criminal,  the  defendant,"  (though  found  guilty  by  his 
peers)  u  is  in  no  danger,  for  he  may  move  the  court  in  ar- 
rest of  judgment." — True,  my  good  Lord,  but  who  is  to 
determine  upon  the  motion? — Is  not  the  court  still  to  decide, 
whether  judgment  shall  be  entered  up  or  not;  and  is  not  the 
defendant  this  way  as  effectually  deprived  of  judgment  by 
his  peers,  as  if  he  were  tried  in  a  court  of  civil  law,  or  in 
the  chambers  of  the  inquisition?  It  is  you,  my  Lord,  who 
then  try  the  crime,  not  the  jury.  As  to  the  probable  effect 
of  a  motion  in  arrest  of  judgment,  I  shall  only  observe,  that 
no  reasonable  man  would  be  so  eager  to  possess  himself  of 
the  invidious  power  of  inflicting  punishment,  if  he  were  not 
predetermined  to  make  use  of  it. 

Again; — We  are  told  that  judge  and  jury  have  a  distinct 
office; — that  the  jury  is  to  find  the  fact,  and  the  judge  to 
deliver  the  law.  De  jure  respondent  judices,  de  facto jurati. 
The  dictum  is  true,  though  not  in  the  sense  given  to  it  by 
Lord  Mansjield.  The  jury  are  undoubtedly  to  determine 
the  fact,  that  is,  whether  the  defendant  did  or  did  not  com- 
mit the  crime  charged  against  him.  The  judge  pronounces 
the  sentence  annexed  by  law  to  that  fact  so  found;  and  if,  in 
the  course  of  the  trial,  any  question  of  law  arises,  both  the 
counsel  and  the  jury  must,  of  necessity,  appeal  to  the  judge, 
and  leave  it  to  his  decision.  An  exception  or  plea  in  bar 
may  be  allowed  by  the  court;  but,  when  issue  is  joined,  and 
the  jury  have  received  their  charge,  it  is  not  possible,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  for  them  to  separate  the  law  from  the  fact, 
ttnless  they  think  proper  to  return  a  special  verdict. 


24  PREFACE. 

It  has  also  been  alledged  that,  although  a  common  jury- 
are  sufficient  to  determine  a  plain  matter  of  fact,  they  are 
not  qualified  to  comprehend  the  meaning,  or  to  judge  of 
the  tendency  of  a  seditious  libel.  In  answer  to  this  ob- 
jection, (which,  if  well  founded,  would  prove  nothing  as  to 
the  strict  right  of  returning  a  general  verdict)  I  might 
safely  deny  the  truth  of  the  assertion.  Englishmen  of  that 
rank,  from  which  juries  are  usually  taken,  are  not  so  illite- 
rate as,  (to  serve  a  particular  purpose)  they  are  now  repre- 
sented. Or,  admitting  the  fact,  let  a  special  jury  be  sum- 
moned in  all  cases  of  difficulty  and  importance,  and  the  ob- 
jection is  removed.  But  the  truth  is,  that  if  a  paper, 
supposed  to  be  a  libel  upon  government,  be  so  obscurely 
worded,  that  twelve  common  men  cannot  possibly  see  the 
seditious  meaning  and  tendency  of  it,  it  is  in  effect  no  libel. 
It  cannot  inflame  the  minds  of  the  people,  nor  alienate  their 
affections  from  government;  for  they  no  more  understand 
what  it  means,  than  if  it  were  published  in  a  language  un- 
known to  them. 

Upon  the  whole  matter,  it  appears  to  my  understanding, 
clear  beyond  a  doubt,  that  if,  in  any  future  prosecution  for 
a  seditious  libel,  the  jury  should  bring  in  a  verdict  of  acquit- 
tal not  warranted  by  the  evidence,  it  will  be  owing  to  the 
false  and  absurd  doctrines  laid  down  by  Lord  Mansfield, 
Disgusted  at  the  odious  artifices  made  use  of  by  the  judge 
to  mislead  and  perplex  them,  guarded  against  his  sophistry, 
and  convinced  of  the  falsehood  of  his  assertions,  they  may 
perhaps  determine  to  thwart  his  detestable  purpose,  and  de- 
feat him  at  any  rate.  To  him  at  least,  they  will  do  substan- 
tial justice. — Whereas,  if  the  whole  charge,  laid  in  the  in- 
formation, be  fairly  and  honestly  submitted  to  the  jury, 
there  is  no  reason  whatsoever  to  presume  that  twelve  men, 
upon  their  oaths,  will  not  decide  impartially  between  the 
King  and  the  "defendant.  The  numerous  instances,  in  our 
state-trials,  of  verdicts  recovered  for  the  King,  sufficiently 
refute  the  false  and  scandalous  imputations  thrown  by  the 
abettors  of  Lord  Mansfield  upon  the  integrity  of  juries.-— 
Rut  even  admitting  the  supposition  that,  in  times  of  univer- 


PREFACE.  25 

sal  discontent,  arising  from  the  notorious  maladministration 
of  public  affairs,  a  seditious  writer  should  escape  punish- 
ment, it  makes  nothing  agai  st  my  general  argument.  If 
juries  are  fallible,  to  what  other  tribunal  shall  we  appeal.'' — 
If  juries  cannot  safely  be  trusted,  shall  we  unite  the  offices  of 
judge  and  jury,  so  wisely  divided  by  the  constitution,  and 
trust  implicitly  to  Lord  Mansfield? — Are  the  judges  of  the 
court  of  King's  Bench  more  likely  to  be  unbiassed  and  im- 
partial, than  twelve  yeomen,  burgesses,  or  gentlemen,  taken 
indifferently  from  the  county  at  large? — Or,  in  short,  shall 
there  be  n  decision,  un  we  have  instituted  a  tribunal, 
from  which  no  possible  abuse  or  inconvenience  whatsoever 
can  arise? — If  I  am  not  grossly  mistaken,  these  questions 
carry  a  decisive  answer  along  with  them*. 

Having  cleared  the  freedom  of  the  press  from  a  restraint, 
equally  unnecessary  and  illegal,  I  return  to  the  use  which 
has  been  made  of  it  in  the  present  publication. 

National  reflections,  I  confess,  are  not  to  be  justified  in 
theory,  nor  upon  any  general  principles.  To  know  how  well 
they  are  deserved,  and  how  justly  they  have  been  applied, 
we  must  have  the  evidence  of  facts  before  us.  We  must  be 
conversant  with  the  Scots  in  private  life,  and  observe  their 
principles  of  acting  to  us,  and  to  each  other; — the  charac- 
teristic prudence,  the  selfish  nationality,  the  indefatigable 
smile,  the  persevering  assiduity,  the  everlasting  profession 
of  a  discreet  and  moderate  resentment. — If  the  instance 
were  not  too  important  for  an  experiment,  it  might  not  be 
amiss  to  confide  a  little  in  their  integrity. — Without  any 
abstract  reasoning  upon  causes  and  effects,  we  shall  soon  be 

*  The  questions  are  so  decisive,  and  the  general  train  of  reasoning  here 
advanced  so  clear  and  convincing,  that  the  point  has  been  ever  since  set- 
tled upon  the  authority  of  common  sense,  in  the  feelings  and  understand- 
ing of  every  man,  whether  professional  or  unprofessional.  And  all  that 
remained  to  be  done  was  an  interference  of  the  legislature  to  pre  vent  a 
revival  of  the  question  by  any  future  judge  upon  any  future  case  what- 
soever; a  business  patriotically  undertaken  by  a  statesman  whose  name 
will  ever  be  connected  with  genuine  patriotism,  the  late  Mr.  Fox,  who  in 
1791  introduced  a  bill  into  parliament  for  this  purpose,  and  in  1792  suc- 
ceeded in  carrying  it  through  both  houses.  See  farther  on  this  subject 
note  to  Junius,  Letter  xli.    Edit. 

Vol.  I.  D 


26  PREFACE. 

convinced  by  experience,  that  the  Scots,  transplanted  from 
their  own  country,  are  always  a  distinct  and  separate  body 
from  the  people  who  receive  them.  In  other  settlements, 
they  only  love  themselves; — in  England,  they  cordially  love 
themselves,  and  as  cordially  hate  their  neighbours.  For  the 
remainder  of  their  good  qualities,  I  must  appeal  to  the  rea- 
der's observation,  unless  he  will  accept  of  my  Lord  Barring- 
ton's  authority.  In  a  letter  to  the  late  Lord  Melcotnbe,  pub- 
lished by  Mr.  Lee,  he  expresses  himself  with  a  truth  and 
accuracy  not  very  common  in  his  lordship's  lucubrations. — 
"  And  Cockburne  like  most  of  his  countrymen,  is  as  abject 
to  those  above  him,  as  he  is  insolent  to  those  below  him."* 
— I  am  far  from  meaning  to  impeach  the  articles  of  the 
Union.  If  the  true  spirit  of  those  articles  were  religiously 
adhered  to,  we  should  not  see  such  a  multitude  of  Scotch 
commoners  in  the  lower  house,  as  representatives  of  English 
boroughs,  while  not  a  single  Scotch  borough  is  ever  repre- 
sented by  an  Englishman.  We  should  not  see  English  peer- 
ages given  to  Scotch  ladies,  or  to  the  elder  sons  of  Scotch 
peers,  and  the  number  of  sixteen  doubled  and  trebled  by  a 
scandalous  evasion  of  the  Act  of  Union. — If  it  should  ever 
be  thought  advisable  to  dissolve  an  act,  the  violation  or  ob- 
servance of  which  is  invariably  directed  by  the  advantage 
and  interest  of  the  Scots,  I  shall  say  very  sincerely  with  Sir 
Edward  Coke,  j "  When  poor  England  stood  alone,  and 
had  not  the  access  of  another  kingdom,  and  yet  had  more 
and  as  potent  enemies  as  it  now  hath,  yet  the  King  of  Eng- 
land prevailed." 

Some  opinion  may  now  be  expected  from  me,  upon  a 
point  of  equal  delicacy  to  the  writer,  and  hazard  to  the  prin- 
ter. When  the  character  of  the  chief  magistrate  is  in  ques- 
tion, more  must  be  understood,  than  may  safely  be  express- 
ed. If  it  be  really  a  part  of  our  constitution,  and  not  a  mere 
dictum  of  the  law,  that  the  King  can  do  no  wrong,  it  is  not 
the  only  instance,  in  the  wisest  of  human  institutions,  where 

*  See  the  same   passage   quoted  in  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  cxi. 
Edit. 
t  Parliamentary  History,  7.  V.  p.  409. 


PREFACE.  27 

theory  is  at  variance  with  practice. — That  the  sovereign  of 
this  country  is  not  amenable  to  any  form  of  trial,  known  to 
the  laws,  is  unquestionable.  But  exemption  from  punish- 
ment is  a  singular  privilege  annexed  to  the  royal  character, 
and  no  way  excludes  the  possibility  of  deserving  it.  How 
long,  and  to  what  extent  a  King  of  England  may  be  pro- 
tected by  the  forms,  when  he  violates  the  spirit  of  the  con- 
stitution, deserves  to  be  considered.  A  mistake  in  this  mat- 
ter proved  fatal  to  Charles  and  his  son. — For  my  own  part, 
far  from  thinking  that  the  King  can  do  no  wrong,  far  from 
suffering  myself  to  be  deterred  or  imposed  upon  by  the  lan- 
guage of  forms,  in  opposition  to  the  substantial  evidence  of 
truth,  if  it  were  my  misfortune  to  live  under  the  inauspi- 
cious reign  of  a  prince,  whose  whole  liie  was  employed  in 
one  base,  contemptible  struggle  with  the  free  spirit  of  his 
people,  or  in  the  detestable  endeavour  to  corrupt  their  moral 
principles,  I  would  not  scruple  to  declare  to  him, — u  Sir, 
You  alone  are  the  author  of  the  greatest  wrong  to  your  sub- 
jects and  to  yourself.  Instead  of  reigning  in  the  hearts  of 
your  people,  instead  of  commanding  their  lives  and  fortunes 
through  the  medium  of  their  affections,  has  not  the  strength 
of  the  crown,  whether  influence  or  prerogative,  been  uni- 
formly exerted,  for  eleven  years  together,  to  support  a  nar- 
row, pitiful  system  of  government,  which  defeats  itself,  and 
answers  no  one  purpose  of  real  power,  profit,  or  personal 
satisfaction  to  You? — With  the  greatest  unappropriated  re- 
venue of  any  prince  in  Europe,  have  we  not  seen  You  re- 
duced to  such  vile,  and  sordid  distresses,  as  would  have 
conducted  any  other  man  to  a  prison? — With  a  great  mili- 
tary, and  the  greatest  naval  power  in  the  known  world,  have 
not  foreign  nations  repeatedly  insulted  You  with  impunity? 
—Is  it  not  notorious  that  the  vast  revenues,  extorted  from 
the  labour  and  industry  of  your  subjects,  and  given  You  to 
do  honour  to  Yourself  and  to  the  nation,  are  dissipated  in 
corrupting  their  representatives? — Are  you  a  prince  of  the 
House  of  Hanover,  and  do  You  exclude  all  the  leading 
Whig  families  from  your  councils? — Do  you  profess  to  go- 
vern according  to  Law,  and  is  it  consistent  with  that  pro- 


og  PREFACE. 

fession,to  impart  your  confidence  and  affection  to  those  men 
only,  who,  though  now  perhaps  detached  from  the  desperate 
cause  of  the  Pretender,  are  marked  in  this  country  by  an 
hereditary  attachment  to  high  and  arbitrary  principles  of  go- 
vernment?— Are  you  so  infatuated  as  to  take  the  sense  of 
your  people  from  the  representation  of  ministers,  or  from 
the  shouts  of  a  mob,  notoriously  hired  to  surround  your 
coach,  or  stationed  at  a  theatre? — And  if  You  are,  in  reality, 
that  public  Man,  that  King,  that  Magistrate,  which  these 
questions  suppose  You  to  be,  is  it  any  answer  to  your  peo- 
ple, to  say  that,  among  your  domestics  You  are  good- 
humoured, — that  to  one  lady  you  are  faithful; — that  to  your 
children  You  are  indulgent? — Sir,  the  man,  who  addresses 
You  in  these  terms  is  your  best  friend  He  would  willingly 
hazard  his  life  in  defence  of  your  title  to  the  crown;  and,  if 
power  be  your  object,  would  still  shew  You  how  possible 
it  is  for  a  King  of  England,  by  the  noblest  means,  to  be  the 
most  absolute  prince  in  Europe:  You  have  no  enemies,  Sir, 
but  those,  who  persuade  You  to  aim  at  power  without  right, 
and  who  think  it  flattery  to  tell  You  that  the  character  of 
King  dissolves  the  natural  relation  between  guilt  and  punish- 
ment." 

I  cannot  conceive  that  there  is  a  heart  so  callous,  or  an  un- 
derstanding so  depraved,  as  to  attend  to  a  discourse  of  this 
nature,  and  not  to  feel  the  force  of  it.  Bat  where  is  the  man, 
among  those  who  have  access  to  the  closet,  resolute  and  hon- 
est enough  to  deliver  it.  The  liberty  of  the  press  is  our  only 
resource.  It  will  command  an  audience  when  every  honest 
man  in  the  kingdom  is  excluded  This  glorious  privilege 
may  be  a  security  to  the  King,  as  well  as  a  resource  to  his 
people.  Had  there  been  no  star-chamber,  there  would  have 
been  no  rebellion  against  Charles  the  First.  The  constant 
censure  and  admonition  of  the  press  would  have  corrected 
his  conduct,  prevented  a  civil  war,  and  saved  him  from  an 
ignominious  death.— I  am  no  friend  to  the  doctrine  of  pre- 
cedents exclusive  of  right,  though  lawyers  often  tell  us,  that 
whatever  has  been  once  done,  may  lawfully  be  done  again. 

I  shall  conclude  this  preface  with  a  quotation,  applicable  to 


PREFACE.  29 

the  subject  from  a  foreign  writer*,  whose  essay  on  the 
English  constitution  I  beg  leave  to  recommend  to  the  pub- 
lic, as  a  performance,  deep,  solid  and  ingenious. 

"  In  short,  whoever  considers  what  it  is,  that  constitutes 
the  moving  principle  of  what  we  call  great  affairs,  and  the 
invincible  sensibility  of  man  to  the  opinion  of  his  fellow 
creatures,  will  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that,  if  it  were  possible 
for  the  liberty  of  the  press  to  exist  in  a  despotic  government, 
and,  (what  is  not  less  difficult)  for  it  to  exist  without  chang- 
ing the  constitution,  this  liberty  of  the  press  would  alone 
form  a  counterpoise  to  the  power  of  the  prince.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, in  an  empire  of  the  East,  a  sanctuary  could  be  found, 
which,  rendered  respectable  by  the  ancient  religion  of  the 
people,  might  insure  safety  to  those,  who  should  bring  thither 
their  observations  of  any  kind;  and  that,  from  thence,  printed 
papers  should  issue,  which,  under  a  certain  seal,  might  be 
equally  respected;  and  which,  in  their  daily  appearance, 
should  examine  and  freely  discuss,  the  conduct  of  the  Cadis, 
the  Bashaws,  the  Vizir,  the  Divan,  and  the  Sultan  himself, 
that  would  introduce  immediately  some  degree  of  liberty." 

*  ATonnevr  de  Ltlme. 


LETTERS 


OF 


JUNIUS,  &c. 


LETTER  I. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  21  January,  1769. 

1  HE  submission  of  a  free  people  to  the  executive  autho- 
rity of  government  is  no  more  than  a  compliance  with  laws, 
which  they  themselves  have  enacted.  While  the  national 
honour  is  firmly  maintained  abroad,  and  while  justice  is  im- 
partially administered  at  home,  the  obedience  of  the  subject 
will  be  voluntary,  cheerful,  and  I  might  almost  say,  unli- 
mited. A  generous  nation  is  grateful  even  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  its  rights,  and  willingly  extends  the  respect  due  to  •'*', 
the  office  of  a  good  prince  into  an  affection  for  his  person. 
Loyalty,  in  the  heart  and  understanding  of  an  Englishman, 
is  a  rational  attachment  to  the  guardian  of  the  laws.  Preju- 
dices and  passion  have  sometimes  carried  it  to  a  criminal 
length;  and,  whatever  foreigners  may  imagine,  we  know  that 
Englishmen  have  erred  as  much  in  a  mistaken  zeal  for  par- 
ticular persons  and  families,  as  they  ever  did  in  defence  of 
what  they  thought  most  dear  and  interesting  to  themselves. 
It  naturally  fills  us  with  resentment,  to  see  such  a  temper 
insulted  and  abused.  In  reading  the  history  of  a  free  people, 
whose  rights  have  been  invaded,  we  are  interested  in  their 
cause.  Our  own  feelings  tell  us  how  long  they  ought  to  have 
submitted,  and  at  what  moment  it  would  have  been  treach- 
ery to  themselves  not  to  have  resisted.  How  much  warmer 


32  LETTERS  OF 

will  be  our  resentment,  if  experience  should  bring  the  fatal 
example  home  to  ourselves! 

The  situation  of  this  country  is  alarming  enough  to  rouse 
the  attention  of  every  man,  who  pretends  to  a  concern  for 
the  public  welfare.  Appearances  justify  suspicion;  and,  when 
the  safety  of  a  nation  is  at  stake,  suspicion  is  a  just  ground 
of  enquiry.  Let  us  enter  into  it  with  candour  and  decency. 
Respect  is  due  to  the  station  of  ministers;  and  if  a  resolution 

i  must  at  last  be  taken,  there  is  none  so  likely  to  be  supported 
JSfcA  with   firmness,  as  that  which  has  been  adopted^  with  mo- 

J  deration. 

The  ruin  or  prosperity  of  a  state  depends  so  much  upon 
the  administration  of  its  government,  that,  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  merit  of  a  ministry,  we  need  only  observe  the  con- 
dition of  the  people*.  If  we  see  them  obedient  to  the  laws, 
prosperous  in  their  industry,  united  at  home  and  respected 
abroad,  we  may  reasonably  presume  that  their  affairs  are 
conducted  by  men  of  experience,  abilities  and  virtue.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  we  see  an  universal  spirit  of  distrust  and  dissa- 
tisfaction, a  rapid  decay  of  trade,  dissentions  in  all  parts  ot 
the  empire,  and  a  total  loss  of  respect  in  the  eyes  of  foreign 
powers,  we  may  pronounce,  without  hesitation,  that  the  go- 
vernment of  that  country  is  weak,  distracted  and  corrupt. 
>^  The  multitude,  in  all  countries, _are  patient  to  a  certain  point. 
Ill-usage  may  rouse  their  indignation,  and  hurry  them  into 
excesses,  but  the  original  fault  is  in  government.  Perhaps 
there  never  was  an  instance  of  a  change,  in  the  circumstances 
and  temper  of  a  whole  nation,  so  sudden  and  extraordinary 

•  The  arrangement  of  uV  ministry,  at  lite  period  in  question,  was  as  fol- 
lows:— Duke  of  Grafton,  first  lord  of  the  treasury;  Lord  North,  chancellor 
of  the  exchequer;  Lord  Camden,  lord  chancellor;  Lord  Viscount  Towns- 
hend,  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland;  Earl  Rochford,  minister  for  the  foreign 
department;  Viscount  Weymouth,  (afterwards  Marquis  of  Bath),  for  the 
home  department;  Earl  of  Hillsborough,  (since  Marquis  of  Downshire), 
American  minister;  Earl  Gower,  lord  president  of  the  council;  Earl  Bristol, 
lord  privy  oeal;  Sir  Edw.  H.swke,  first  lord  of  the  admiralty;  Viscount  Bar- 
rip.gton,  secretary  at  war;  Marquis  of  Granby,  master  gen.  of  the  ordnance; 
Lord  Howe,  treasurer  of  the  navy;  Mr.  De  Grey,  (afterwards  Lord  Wal- 
singham),  attorney-general;  and  Mr.  Dunning,  solicitor-general.    Edit. 


JUNIUS.  33 

as  that  which  the  misconduct  of  ministers  has,  within  these 
very  few  years,  produced  in  Great  Britain.  When  our  gra- 
cious sovereign  ascended  the  throne,  we  were  a  flourishing 
and  a  contented  people.  If  the  personal  virtues  of  a  king 
could  have  insured  the  happiness  of  his  subjects,  the  scene 
could  not  have  altered  so  entirely  as  it  has  done.  The  idea 
of  uniting  all  parties,  of  trying  all  characters,  and  of  distri- 
buting the  offices  of  state  by  rotation,  was  gracious  and  be- 
nevolent to  an  extreme,  though  it  has  not  yet  produced  the 
many  salutary  effects  which  were  intended  by  it.  To  say 
nothing  of  the  wisdom  of  such  a  plan,  it  undoubtedly  arose 
from  an  unbounded  goodness  of  heart,  in  which  folly  had  no 
share.  It  was  not  a  capricious  partiality  to  new  faces; — it 
was  not  a  natural  turn  for  low  intrigue;  nor  was  it  the  treach- 
erous amusement  of  double  and  triple  negotiations.  No,  Sir, 
it  arose  from  a  continued  anxiety,  in  the  purest  of  all  possi- 
ble hearts,  for  the  general  welfare.  Unfortunately  for  us, 
the  event  has  not  been  answerable  to  the  design.  After  a  ra- 
pid succession  of  changes,  we  are  reduced  to  that  state,  which 
hardly  any  change  can  mend.  Yet  there  is  no  extremity  of 
distress,  which  of  itself  ought  to  reduce  a  great  nation  to 
despair.  It  is  not  the  disorder,  but  the  physician; — it  is  not 
a  casual  concurrence  of  calamitous  circumstances,  it  is  the 
pernicious  hand  of  government,  which  alone  can  make  a 
whole  people  desperate. 

Without  much  political  sagacity,  or  any  extraordinary 
depth  of  observation,  we  need  only  mark  how  the  principal 
departments  of  the  state  are  bestowed,  and  look  no  farther 
for  the  true  cause  of  every  mischief  that  befals  us. 

The  finances  of  a  nation,  sinking  under  its  debts  and  ex- 
pences,  are  committed  to  a  young  nobleman  already  ruined 
by  play*.  Introduced  to  act  under  the  auspices  of  Lord 

*  The  Duke  of  Grafton  took  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State,  with  an 
engagement  to  support  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham's  administration.  He 
resigned  however  in  a  little  time,  under  pretence  that  he  could  not  act 
without  Lord  Chatham,  nor  bear  to  see  Mr.  Wilkes  abandoned;  but  that 
under  Lord  Chatham  he  would  act  in  any  office.  This  was  the  signal  of 
Lord  Rockingham's  dismission.  When  Lord  Chatham  came  in,  the  Duke 
got  possession  of  the  Treasury.  Reader,  mark  the  consequence! 

Vol.  I.  E 


34  LETTERS  OF 

Chatham,  and  left  at  the  head  of  affairs  by  that  nobleman's 
retreat,  he  became  minister  by  accident;  but  deserting  the 
principles  and  professions,  which  gave  him  a  moment's  po- 
pularity, we  see  him,  from  every  honourable  engagement  to 
the  public,  an  apostate  by  design.  As  for  business,  the  world 
yet  knows  nothing  of  his  talents  or  resolution;  unless  a  way- 
ward, wavering  inconsistency  be  a  mark  of  genius,  and  ca- 
price a  demonstration  of  spirit.  It  may  be  said  perhaps,  that 
it  is  his  Grace's  province,  as  surely  it  is  his  passion,  rather 
to  distribute  than  to  save  the  public  money,  and  that  while 
Lord  North  is  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  may  be  as  thoughtless  and  extravagant  as 
he  pleases.  I  hope  however  he  will  not  rely  too  much  on  the 
fertility  of  Lord  North's  genius  for  finance.  His  lordship  is 
yet  to  give  us  the  first  proof  of  his  abilities:  It  may  be  can- 
did to  suppose  that  he  has  hitherto  voluntarily  concealed  his 
talents;  intending  perhaps  to  astonish  the  world,  when  we 
least  expect  it,  with  a  knowledge  of  trade,  a  choice  of  expe- 
dients, and  a  depth  of  resources  equal  to  the  necessities, 
and  far  beyond  the  hopes  of  his  country.  He  must  now  ex- 
ert the  whole  power  of  his  capacity,  if  he  would  wish  us  to 
forget,  that,  since  he  has  been  in  office,  no  plan  has  been 
formed,  no  system  adhered  to,  nor  any  one  important  mea- 
sure adopted  for  the  relief  of  public  credit.  If  his  plan  for 
the  service  of  the  current  year  be  not  irrevocably  fixed  on, 
let  me  warn  him  to  think  seriously  of  consequences  before 
he  ventures  to  increase  the  public  debt*.  Outraged  and  op- 
pressed as  we  are,  this  nation  will  not  bear,  after  a  six  years' 
peace,  to  see  new  millions  borrowed,  without  an  eventual 
diminution  of  debt,  or  reduction  of  interest.  The  attempt 
might  rouse  a  spirit  of  resentment,  which  might  reach  be- 
yond the  sacrifice  of  a  minister.  As  to  the  debt  upon  the 
civil  list,  the  people  of  England  expect  that  it  will  not  be 
paid  without  a  strict  enquiry  how  it  was  incurred.  If  it  must 
be  paid  by  parliament,  let  me  advise  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  to  think  of  some  better  expedient  than  a  lottery. 

*  The  public  debt  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace  in  1763,  amounted  to 
,£148,377,618.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  35 

To  support  an  expensive  war,  or  in  circumstances  of  abso- 
lute necessity,  a  lottery  may  perhaps  be  allowable;  but,  be- 
sides that  it  is  at  all  times  the  very  worst  way  of  raising 
money  upon  the  people,  I  think  it  ill  becomes  the  Royal  dig- 
nity to  have  the  debts  of  a  King  provided  for,  like  the  repairs 
of  a  country  bridge,  or  a  decayed  hospital.  The  management 
of  the  King's  affairs  in  the  House  of  Commons  cannot  be 
more  disgraced  than  it  has  been.  A  leading  minister  repeat- 
edly called  down  for  absolute  ignorance; — ridiculous  motions 
ridiculously  withdrawn; — deliberate  plans  disconcerted*, 
and  a  week's  preparation  of  graceful  oratory  lost  in  a  mo- 
ment, give  us  some,  though  not  adequate,  idea  of  Lord 
North's  parliamentary  abilities  and  influence.  Yet  before  he 
had  the  misfortune  of  being  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
he  was  neither  an  object  of  derision  to  his  enemies,  nor  of 
melancholy  pity  to  his  friends. 

A  series  of  inconsistent  measures  had  alienated  the  colo- 
nies from  their  duty  as  subjects,  and  from  their  natural  af- 
fection to  their  cpmmon  country.  When  Mr.  Grenville  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury,  he  felt  the  impossibility 
of  Great  Britain's  supporting  such  an  establishment  as  her 
former  successes  had  made  indispensable,  and  at  the  same 
time  of  giving  any  sensible  relief  to  foreign  trade,  and  to  the 
weight  of  the  public  debt.  He  thought  it  equitable  that  those 
parts  of  the  empire,  which  had  benefited  most  by  the  expen- 
ces  of  the  war,  should  contribute  something  to  the  expences 
of  the  peace,  and  he  had  no  doubt  of  the  constitutional  right 
vested  in  parliament  to  raise  that  contribution.  But,  unfor- 
tunately for  his  country,  Mr.  Grenville  was  at  any  rate  to 
be  distressed  because  he  was  minister,  and  Mr.  Pittf  and 
Lord  Camden  were  to  be  the  patrons  of  America,  because 
they  were  in  opposition.  Their  declarations  gave  spirit  and 
argument  to  the  colonies,  and  while  perhaps  they  meant  no 
more  than  the  ruin  of  a  minister,  they  in  effect  divided  one 
half  of  the  empire  from  the  other. 

Under  one  administration  the  stamp  act  is  made;  under 

*  This  happened  frequently  to  poor  Lord  North. 

f  Yet  Junius  haa  been  called  the  parti  zan  of  Lord  Chatham' 


56  LETTERS  OF 

the  second  it  is  repealed;  under  the  third,  in  spite  of  all  ex- 
perience, a  new  mode  of  taxing  the  colonies  is  invented,  and 
a  question  revived,  which  ought  to  have  been  buried  in  ob- 
livion. In  these  circumstances  a  new  office  is  established  for 
the  business  of  the  plantations,  and  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough 
called  forth,  at  a  most  critical  season,  to  govern  America*. 
The  choice  at  least  announced  to  us  a  man  of  superior  capa- 
city and  knowledge.  Whether  he  be  so  or  not,  let  his  dis- 
patches as  far  as  they  have  appeared,  let  his  measures  as  far 
as  they  have  operated,  determine  for  him.  In  the  former  we 
have  seen  strong  assertions  without  proof,  declamation  with- 
out argument,  and  violent  censures  without  dignity  or  mo- 
deration; but  neither  correctness  in  the  composition,  nor 
judgment  in  the  design.  As  for  his  measures,  let  it  be  re- 
membered, that  he  was  called  upon  to  conciliate  and  unite; 
and  that,  when  he  entered  into  office,  the  most  refractory  of 
the  colonies  were  still  disposed  to  proceed  by  the  constitu- 
tional methods  of  petition  and  remonstrance.  Since  that  pe- 
riod they  have  been  driven  into  excesses  little  short  of  rebel- 
lion. Petitions  have  been  hindered  from  reaching  the  throne; 
and  the  continuance  of  one  of  the  principal  assemblies  rested 
upon  an  arbitrary  conditionf ,  which,  considering  the  temper 
they  were  in,  it  was  impossible  they  should  comply  with, 
and  which  would  have  availed  nothing  as  to  the  general  ques- 
tion, if  it  had  been  complied  with.  So  violent,  and  I  believe 
I  may  call  it  so  unconstitutional,  an  exertion  of  the  prero- 
gative, to  say  nothing  of  the  weak,  injudicious  terms  in 
which  it  was  conveyed,  gives  us  as  humble  an  opinion  of  his 
lordship's  capacity,  as  it  does  of  his  temper  and  moderation. 
While  we  are  at  peace  with  other  nations,  our  military  force 

*  Upon  the  death  of  Queen  Anne  a  third  secretaryship,  antecedently 
unknown  to  the  constitution,  was  created,  professing  to  be  for  the  super- 
intendence of  Scotland,  which  terminated  upon  the  cessation  of  the  rebel- 
lion. In  1768,  for  the  purpose  of  finding  a  post  for  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough, 
the  office  of  third  Secretary  was  revived;  and  Scotland  having  no  peculiar 
demand  for  his  talents,  he  was  denominated  Secretary  for  America.  For 
the  rest  see  oiir  author's  preceding  letters,  subscribed  Atticus  and  Lucius, 
in  the  Miscellaneous  Collection.  Edit. 

f  That  they  should  retract  one  of  their  resolutions,  and  erase  the  entry 
of  it. 


JUNIUS.  37 

may  perhaps  be  spared  to  support  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough's 
measures  in  America.  Whenever  that  force  shall  be  neces- 
sarily withdrawn  or  diminished,  the  dismission  of  such  a 
minister  will  neither  console  us  for  his  imprudence,  nor  re- 
move the  settled  resentment  of  a  people,  who,  complaining 
of  an  act  of  the  legislature,  are  outraged  by  an  unwarrant- 
able stretch  of  prerogative,  and,  supporting  their  claims  by 
argument,  are  insulted  with  declamation. 

Drawing  lots  would  be  a  prudent  and  reasonable  method 
of  appointing  the  officers  of  state,  compared  to  a  late  dispo- 
sition of  the  secretary's  office.  Lord  Rochford  was  acquaint- 
ed with  the  affairs  and  temper  of  the  southern  courts:  Lord 
Weymouth  was  equally  qualified  for  either  department*. 
By  what  unaccountable  caprice  has  it  happened,  that  the  lat- 
ter, who  pretends  to  no  experience  whatsoever,  is  removed 
to  the  most  important  of  the  two  departments,  and  the  for- 
mer by  preference  placed  in  an  office,  where  his  experience 
can  be  of  no  use  to  him?  Lord  Weymouth  had  distinguished 
himself  in  his  first  employment  by  a  spirited,  if  not  judicious 
conduct.  He  had  animated  the  civil  magistrate  beyond  the 
tone  of  civil  authority,  and  had  directed  the  operations  of  the 
army  to  more  than  military  execution.  Recovered  from  the 
errors  of  his  youth,  from  the  distraction  of  play,  and  the  be- 
witching smiles  of  Burgundy,  behold  him  exerting  the  whole 
strength  of  his  clear,  unclouded  faculties,  in  the  service  of 
the  crown.  It  was  not  the  heat  of  midnight  excesses,  nor 
ignorance  of  the  laws,  nor  the  furious  spirit  of  the  house  of 
Bedford:  No,  Sir,  when  this  respectable  minister  interposed 
his  authority  between  the  magistrate  and  the  people,  and 
signed  the  mandate,  on  which,  for  aught  he  knew,  the  lives 
of  thousands  depended,  he  did  it  from  the  deliberate  motion 
of  his  heart,  supported  by  the  best  of  his  judgment. 

It  has  lately  been  a  fashion  to  pay  a  compliment  to  the 
bravery  and  generosity  of  the  Commander  in  Chieff,  at  the 

*  It  was  pretended  that  the  Earl  of  Rochford,  while  ambassador  in 
France,  had  quarrelled  with  the  duke  of  Choiseuil,  and  that  therefore  he 
was  appointed  to  the  Northern  department,  out  of  compliment  to  the 
French  minister. 

t  The  late  Lord  Granby. 


38  LETTERS  OF 

expence  of  his  understanding.  They  who  love  him  least 
make  no  question  of  his  courage,  while  his  friends  dwell 
chiefly  on  the  facility  of  his  disposition.  Admitting  him  to 
be  as  brave  as  a  total  absence  of  all  feeling  and  reflection  can 
make  him,  let  us  see  what  sort  of  merit  he  derives  from  the 
remainder  of  his  character.  If  it  be  generosity  to  accumu- 
late in  his  own  person  and  familv  a  number  of  lucrative  em- 
ployments; to  provide,  at  the  public  expence,  for  every  crea- 
ture that  bears  the  name  of  Manners;  and,  neglecting  the 
merit  and  services  of  the  rest  of  the  army,  to  heap  promo- 
tions upon  his  favourites  and  dependants,  the  present  Com- 
mander in  Chief  is  the  most  generous  man  alive.  Nature 
has  been  sparing  of  her  gifts  to  this  noble  lord;  but  where 
birth  and  fortune  are  united,  we  expect  the  noble  pride  and 
independence  of  a  man  of  spirit,  not  the  servile,  humiliating 
complaisance  of  a  courtier.  As  to  the  goodness  of  his  heart, 
if  a  proof  of  it  be  taken  from  the  facility  of  never  refusing, 
what  conclusion  shall  we  draw  from  the  indecency  of  never 
performing?  And  if  the  discipline  of  the  army  be  in  any  de- 
gree preserved,  what  thanks  are  due  to  a  man,  whose  cares, 
notoriously  confined  to  filling  up  vacancies,  have  'degraded 
the  office  of  Commander  in  Chief  to  a  broker  of  commissions? 

With  respect  to  the  navy,  I  shall  only  say,  that  this  coun- 
try is  so  highly  indebted  to  Sir  Edward  Hawke,  that  no 
expence  should  be  spared  to  secure  to  him  an  honourable 
and  affluent  retreat. 

The  pure  and  impartial  administration  of  justice  is  per- 
haps the  firmest  bond  to  secure  a  cheerful  submission  of  the 
people,  and  to  engage  their  affections  to  government.  It  is 
not  sufficient  that  questions  of  private  right  and  wrong  are 
justly  decided,  nor  that  judges  are  superior  to  the  vileness 
of  pecuniary  corruption.  Jefferies  himself,  when  the  court 
had  no  interest,  was  an  upright  judge.  A  court  of  justice 
may  be  subject  to  another  sort  of  bias,  more  important  and 
pernicious,  as  it  reaches  beyond  the  interest  of  individuals, 
and  affects  the  whole  community.  A  judge  under  the  influ- 
ence of  government,  may  be  honest  enough  in  the  decision 
of  private  causes,  yet  a  traitor  to  the  public.  When  a  victim 


JUNIUS.  39 

is  marked  out  by  the  ministry,  this  judge  will  offer  himself 
to  perform  the  sacrifice.  He  will  not  scruple  to  prostitute 
his  dignity,  and  betray  the  sanctity  of  his  office,  whenever  an 
arbitrary  point  is  to  be  carried  for  government,  or  the  re- 
sentment of  a  court  to  be  gratified. 

These  principles  and  proceedings,  odious  and  contempti- 
ble as  they  are,  in  effect  are  no  less  injudicious.  A  wise  and 
generous  people  are  roused  by  every  appearance  of  oppres- 
sive, unconstitutional  measures,  whether  those  measures  are 
supported  openly  by  the  power  of  government,  or  masked 
under  the  forms  of  a  court  of  justice.  Prudence  and  self- 
preservation  will  oblige  the  most  moderate  dispositions  to 
make  common  cause,  even  with  a  man  whose  conduct  they 
censure,  if  they  see  him  persecuted  in  a  way,  which  the  real 
spirit  of  the  laws  will  not  justify*.  The  facts,  on  which  these 
remarks  are  founded,  are  too  notorious  to  require  an  appli- 
cation. 

This,  Sir,  is  the  detail.  In  one  view  behold  a  nation  over- 
whelmed with  debt;  her  revenues  wasted;  her  trade  declin- 
ing; the  affections  of  her  colonies  alienated;  the  duty  of  the 
magistrate  transferred  to  the  soldiery;  a  gallant  army,  which 
never  fought  unwillingly  but  against  their  fellow  subjects, 
mouldering  away  for  want  of  the  direction  of  a  man  of  com- 
mon abilities  and  spirit;  and,  in  the  last  instance,  the  admi- 
nistration of  justice  become  odious  and  suspected  to  the 
whole  body  of  the  people.  This  deplorable  scene  admits  but 
of  one  addition — that  we  are  governed  by  counsels,  from 
which  a  reasonable  man  can  expect  no  remedy  but  poison, 
no  relief  but  death. 

If,  by  the  immediate  interposition  of  Providence,  it  were 
possible  for  us  to  escape  a  crisis  so  full  of  terror  and  despair, 
posterity  will  not  believe  the  history  of  the  present  times. 
They  will  either  conclude  that  our  distresses  were  imagi- 
nary, or  that  we  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  governed  by  men 
of  acknowledged  integrity  and  wisdom:  they  will  not  believe 
it  possible  that  their  ancestors  could  have  survived,  or  re- 

*  Mr.  Wilkes.  Edit 


40  LETTERS  OF 

covered  from  so  desperate  a  condition,  while  a  Duke  of 
Grafton  was  Prime  Minister,  a  Lord  North  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  a  Weymouth  and  a  Hillsborough  Secreta- 
ries of  State,  a  Granby  Commander  in  Chief,  and  a  Mans- 
field chief  criminal  judge  of  the  kingdom. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  II. 

TO    THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  26  January,  1769. 

The  kingdom  swarms  with  such  numbers  of  felonious 
robbers  of  private  character  and  virtue,  that  no  honest  or 
good  man  is  safe;  especially  as  these  cowardly,  base  assas- 
sins stab  in  the  dark,  without  having  the  courage  to  sign 
their  real  names  to  their  malevolent  and  wicked  productions. 
A  writer,  who  signs  himself  Junius,  in  the  Public  Adverti- 
ser of  the  21st  instant,  opens  the  deplorable  situation  of  this 
country  in  a  very  affecting  manner;  with  a  pompous  parade 
of  his  candour  and  decency,  he  tells  us,  that  we  see  dissen- 
tions  in  all  parts  of  the  empire,  an  universal  spirit  of  distrust 
and  dissatisfaction,  and  a  total  loss  of  respect  towards  us  in 
the  eyes  of  foreign  powers.  But  this  writer,  with  all  his 
boasted  candour,  has  not  told  us  the  real  cause  of  the  evils 
he  so  pathetically  enumerates.  I  shall  take  the  liberty  to  ex- 
plain the  cause  for  him.  Junius,  and  such  writers  as  him- 
self, occasion  all  the  mischief  complained  of,  by  falsely  and 
maliciously  traducing  the  best  characters  in  the  kingdom. 
For  when  our  deluded  people  at  home,  and  foreigners 
abroad,  read  the  poisonous  and  inflammatory  libels  that  are 
daily  published  with  impunity,  to  vilify  those  who  are  any 
way  distinguished  by  their  good  qualities  and  eminent  vir- 
tues; when  they  find  no  notice  taken  of,  or  reply  given  to 
these  slanderous  tongues  and  pens,  their  conclusion  is,  that 
both  the  ministers  and  the  nation  have  been  fairly  described; 
and  they  act  accordingly.  I  think  it  therefore  the  duty  of 
every  good  citizen  to  stand  forth,  and  endeavour  to  unde- 


JUNIUS.  41 

ceive  the  public,  when  the  vilest  arts  are  made  use  of  to  de- 
fame and  blacken  the  brightest  ch-racters  among  us.  An 
eminent  author  affirms  it  to  be  almost  as  criminal  to  hear  a 
worthy  man  traduced,  without  attempting  his  justification, 
as  to  be  the  author  of  the  calumny  against  him.  For  my  own 
part,  I  think  it  a  sort  of  misprision  of  treason  against  society. 
No  man  therefore  who  knows  Lord  Granby,  can  possibly 
hear  so  good  and  great  a  character  most  vilelv  abused,  with- 
out a  warm  and  just  indignation  against  this  Junius,  this 
high-priest  of  envy,  malice,  and  all  uncharitableness,  who 
has  endeavoured  to  sacrifice  our  beloved  commander  in 
chief  at  the  altars  of  his  horrid  deities.  Nor  is  the  injury 
done  to  his  lordship  alone,  but  to  the  whole  nation,  which 
may  too  soon  feel  the  contempt,  and  consequently  the  at- 
tacks of  our  late  enemies,  if  they  can  be  induced  to  believe 
that  the  person  on  whom  the  safety  of  these  kingdoms  so 
much  depends,  is  unequal  to  his  high  station,  and  destitute 
of  those  qualities  which  form  a  good  general.  One  would 
have  thought  that  his  lordship's  service  in  the  cause  of  his 
country,  from  the  battle  of  Culloden  to  his  most  glorious 
conclusion  of  the  late  war,  might  have  entitled  him  to  com- 
mon respect  and  decency  at  least;  but  this  uncandid,  indecent 
writer  has  gone  so  far  as  to  turn  one  of  the  most  amiable 
men  of  the  age  into  a  stupid,  unfeeling,  and  senseless  being; 
possessed  indeed  of  a  personal  courage,  but  void  of  those 
essential  qualities  which  distinguish  the  commander  from 
the  common  soldier. 

A  very  long,  uninterrupted,  impartial,  I  will  add,  a  most 
disinterested  friendship  with  Lord  Granby,  gives  me  the 
right  to  affirm,  that  all  Junius's  assertions  are  false  and  scan- 
dalous. Lord  Granby's  courage,  though  of  the  brightest  and 
most  ardent  kind,  is  among  the  lowest  of  his  numerous  good 
qualities;  he  was  formed  to  excel  in  war  by  nature's  liberali- 
ty to  his  mind  as  well  as  person.  Educated  and  instructed 
by  his  most  noble  father,  and  a  most  spirited  as  well  as  ex- 
cellent scholar,  the  present  bishop  of  Bangor*,  he  was  train- 
ed to  the  nicest  sense  of  honour,  and  to  the  truest  and  no- 

*  Dr.  John  Ewer.   Edit 

Vol.  I.  F 


42  LETTERS  OF 

blest  sort  of  pride,  that  of  never  doing  or  suffering  a  mean 
action.  A  sincere  love  and  attachment  to  his  king  and  coun- 
try, and  to  their  glory,  first  impelled  him  to  the  field,  where 
he  never  gained  aught  but  honour.  He  impaired,  through 
his  bountv,  his  own  fortune;  for  his  bounty,  which  this  wri- 
ter would  in  vain  depreciate,  is  founded  upon  the  noblest  of 
the  human  affections,  it  flows  from  a  heart  melting  to  good- 
ness from  the  most  refined  humanity.  Can  a  man,  who  is 
described  as  unfeeling,  and  void  of  reflection,  be  constantly 
employed  in  seeking  proper  objects  on  whom  to  exercise 
those  glorious  virtues  of  compassion  and  generosity?  The 
distressed  officer,  the  soldier,  the  widow,  the  orphan,  and  a 
long  list  besides,  know  that  vanity  has  no  share  in  his  fre- 
quent donations;  he  gives,  because  he  feels  their  distresses. 
Nor  has  he  ever  been  rapacious  with  one  hand  to  be  bounti- 
ful with  the  other;  yet  this  uncandid  Junius  would  insinuate, 
that  the  dignity  of  the  commander  in  chief  is  depraved  into 
the  base  office  of  a  commission  broker;  that  is,  Lord  Granby 
bargains  for  the  sale  of  commissions;  for  it  must  have  this 
meaning,  if  it  has  any  at  all.  But  where  is  the  man  living 
who  can  justly  charge  his  lordship  with  such  mean  practices? 
Why  does  not  Junius  produce  him?  Junius  knows  that  he 
has  no  other  means  of  wounding  this  hero,  than  from  some 
missile  weapon,  shot  from  an  obscure  corner:  He  seeks,  as 
all  such  defamatory  writers  do, 

spargere  voces 

In  vulgum  ambiguas 

to  raise  suspicion  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  But  I  hope  that 
my  countrymen  will  be  no  longer  imposed  upon  by  artful 
and  designing  men,  or  by  wretches,  who,  bankrupts  in  busi- 
ness, in  fame,  and  in  fortune,  mean  nothing  more  than  to  in- 
volve this  country  in  the  same  common  ruin  with  themselves. 
Hence  it  is,  that  they  are  constantly  aiming  their  dark  and 
too  often  fatal  weapons  against  those  who  stand  forth  as  the 
bulwark  of  our  national  safety.  Lord  Granby  was  too  con- 
spicuous a  mark  not  to  be  their  object.  He  is  next  attacked 
for  being  unfaithful  to  his  promises  and  engagements:  Where 
are  Junius's  proofs?  Although  I  could  give  some  instances, 


JUNIUS.  43 

where  a  breach  of  promise  would  be  a  virtue,  especially  in 
the  case  of  those  who  would  pervert  the  open,  unsuspecting 
moments  of  convivial  mirth,  into  sly,  insidious  applications 
for  preferment,  or  party  systems,  and  would  endeavour  to 
surprise  a  good  man,  who  cannot  bear  to  see  any  one  leave 
him  dissatisfied,  into  unguarded  promises.  Lord  Granby's 
attention  to  his  own  family  and  relations  is  called  selfish. 
Had  he  not  attended  to  them,  when  fair  and  just  opportuni- 
ties presented  themselves,  I  should  have  thought  him  un- 
feeling, and  void  of  reflection  indeed.  How  are  any  man's 
friends  or  relations  to  be  provided  for,  but  from  the  influ- 
ence and  protection  of  the  patron?  It  is  unfair  to  suppose 
that  Lord  Granby's  friends  have  not  as  much  merit  as  the 
friends  of  any  other  great  man:  If  he  is  generous  at  the  pub- 
lic expence,as  Junius  invidiously  calls  it,  the  public  is  at  no 
more  expence  for  his  lordship's  friends,  than  it  would  be  if 
any  other  set  of  men  possessed  chose  offices.  The  charge  is 
ridiculous! 

The  last  charge  against  Lord  Granby  is  of  a  most  serious 
and  alarming  nature  indeed.  Junius  asserts,  that  the  army  is 
mouldering  away  for  want  of  the  direction  of  a  man  of  com- 
mon abilities  and  spirit.  The  present  condition  of  the  army 
gives  the  directest  lie  to  his  assertions.  It  was  never  upon  a 
more  respectable  footing  with  regard  to  discipline,  and  all 
the  essentials  that  can  form  good  soldiers.  Lord  Ligonier 
delivered  a  firm  and  noble  palladium  of  our  safeties  into 
Lord  Granby's  hands,  who  has  kept  it  in  the  same  good 
order  in  which  he  received  it.  The  strictest  care  has  been 
taken  to  fill  up  the  vacant  commissions,  with  such  gentlemen 
as  have  the  glory  of  their  ancestors  to  support,  as  well  as 
their  own,  and  are  doubly  bound  to  the  cause  of  their  king 
and  country,  from  motives  of  private  property,  as  well  as 
public  spirit.  The  adjutant-general*,  who  has  the  immediate 
care  of  the  troops  after  Lord  Granby,  is  an  officer  who  wrould 
do  great  honour  to  any  service  in  Europe,  for  his  correct  ar- 
rangements, good  sense  and  discernment  upon  all  occasions, 
and  for  a  punctuality  and  precision  which  give  the  most  en- 

*  Harvey.   Edit. 


44  LETTERS  OF 

tire  satisfaction  to  all  who  are  obliged  to  consult  him.  The 
reviewing  generals,  who  inspect  the  army  twice  a  year,  have 
been  selected  with  the  greatest  care,  and  have  answered  the 
important  trust  reposed  in  them  in  the  most  laudable  man- 
ner. Their  reports  of  the  condition  of  the  army  are  much 
more  to  be  credited  than  those  of  Junius,  whom  I  do  advise 
to  atone  for  his  shameful  aspersions,  by  asking  pardon  of 
Lord  Granby,  and  the  whole  kingdom,  whom  he  has  offend- 
ed by  his'  abominable  scandals.  In  short,  to  turn  Junius's 
own  battery  against  him,  I  must  assert,  in  his  own  words, 
"  that  he  has  given  strong  assertions  without  proof,  declama- 
tion without  argument,  and  violent  censures  without  dignity 
or  moderation." 

WILLIAM  DRAPER*. 

*  As  a  correspondent  of  Junius  in  this  and  several  other  letters,  the  fol- 
lowing short  notice  of  Sir  William  Draper  cannot  be  unacceptable  to  the 
reader.  We  take  it  by  Mr.  Chalmers's  permission  from  his  Appendix  to 
the  Supplemental  Apology  for  the  Believers  in  the  supposititious  Shake- 
speare papers,  p.  80. 

"  Sir  William,  as  a  scholar,  had  been  bred  at  Eton,  and  King's  college, 
Cambridge;  but,  he  chose  the  sword,  for  his  profession.  In  India,  he  rank- 
ed with  those  famous  warriors  dive,  and  Laurence.  In  1761,  he  acted  at 
Bellisle,  as  a  Brigadier.  In  1763,  he  commanded  the  troops  who  conquered 
Manilla,  which  place  was  saved  from  plunder,  by  the  promise  of  a  ransom, 
that  was  never  paid.  His  first  appearance,  as  an  able  writer,  was  in  his 
clear  refutation  of  the  objections  of  the  Spanish  court.  His  services  were 
rewarded  with  the  command  of  the  sixteenth  regiment  of  foot,  which  he 
resigned  to  Colonel  Gisborne,  for  his  half-pay  of  20u/,  Irish:  This  common 
transaction  furnished  Junius  with  many  a  sarcasm.  Sir  William  had 
scarcely  closed  his  contest  with  that  formidable  opponent,  when  he  had 
the  misfortune  to  lose  his  wife,  who  died  on  the  1st  of  September,  1769. 
As  he  was  foiled,  he  was,  no  doubt,  mortified.  And  he  set  out,  in  October 
of  that  year,  to  make  the  tour  of  the  Northern  Colonies,  which  had  now 
become  objects  of  notice,  and  scenes  of  travel.  He  arrived  at  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  in  January,  1770;  and  travelling  northward,  he  arrived, 
during  the  summer  of  that  year,  in  Maryland;  where  he  was  received  with 
that  hospitality  which  she  always  paid  to  strangers,  and  with  the  attentions, 
that  were  due  to  the  merit  of  sucli  a  visitor. 

"  From  Maryland,  Sir  William  passed  on  to  New  York,  where  he  mar- 
ried Miss  De  Lancy,  a  lady  of  great  connections  there,  and  agreeable  en- 
dowments, who  died  in  1778;  leaving  him  a  daughter.  In  1779,  he  was 
appointed  Lieutenant-governor  of  Minorca;  a  trust,  which,  however  dis- 
charged, ended  unhappily.  He  died  at  Bath,  on  the  8th  of  January,  1787." 
—Edit. 


JUNIUS.  45 

LETTER  III. 

TO  SIR  WILLIAM  DRAPER,  KNIGHT  OF  THE  BATH. 
Sir,  7  February,  1769. 

The  defence  of  Lord  Granby  does  honour  to  the  good* 
ness  of  your  heart.  You  feel,  as  you  ought  to  do,  for  the  re- 
putation of  your  friend,  and  you  express  yourself  in  the 
warmest  language  of  the  passions.  In  any  other  cause,  I 
doubt  not,  you  would  have  cautiously  weighed  the  con- 
sequences of  committing  your  name  to  the  licentious  dis- 
courses and  malignant  opinions  of  the  world.  But  here,  I  pre- 
sume, you  thought  it  would  be  a  breach  of  friendship  to  lose 
one  moment  in  consulting  your  understanding;  as  if  an  ap- 
peal to  the  public  were  no  more  than  a  military  coup  de  main, 
where  a  brave  man  has  no  rules  to  follow,  but  the  dictates  of 
his  courage.  Touched  with  your  generosity,  I  freely  forgive 
the  excesses  into  which  it  has  led  you;  and,  far  from  resent- 
ing those  terms  of  reproach,  which,  considering  that  you  are 
an  advocate  for  decorum,  you  have  heaped  upon  me  rather 
too  liberally,  I  place  them  to  the  account  of  an  honest  unre- 
flecting indignation,  in  which  your  cooler  judgment  and  na- 
tural politeness  had  no  concern.  I  approve  of  the  spirit  with 
which  you  have  given  your  name  to  the  public;  and,  if  it  were 
a  proof  of  any  thing  but  spirit,  I  should  have  thought  myself 
bound  to  follow  your  example.  I  should  have  hoped  that 
even  my  name  might  carry  some  authority  with  it*,  if  I  had 
not  seen  how  very  little  weight  or  consideration  a  printed 
paper  receives  even  from  the  respectable  signature  of  Sir 
William  Draper. 

You  begin  with  a  general  assertion,  that  writers,  such  as  I 
am,  are  the  real  cause  of  all  the  public  evils  we  complain  of. 
And  do  you  really  think,  Sir  William,  that  the  licentious 

*  This  expression  will  receive  some  farther  light  from  a  feature  of  him- 
self incidentally  introduced  by  the  author  in  a  letter  omitted  in  his  own 
edition,  but  inserted  in  the  present  work,  Miscellaneous  Letter,  No.  liv. 
as  also  from  other  views  of  his  sentiments  and  conduct  as  casually  evince  J. 
in  the  Private  Letters.  Edit 


46  LETTERS  OF 

pen  of  a  political  writer  is  able  to  produce  such  important 
effects?  A  little  calm  reflection  might  have  shewn  you,  that 
national  calamities  do  not  arise  from  the  description,  but 
from  the  real  character  and  conduct  of  ministers.  To  have 
supported  your  assertion,  you  should  have  proved  that  the 
present  ministry  are  unquestionably  the  best  and  brightest 
characters  of  the  kingdom:  and  that,  if  the  affections  of  the 
colonies  have  been  alienated,  if  Corsica*  has  been  shame- 
fully abandoned,  if  commerce  languishes,  if  public  credit  is 
threatened  with  a  new  debt,  and  your  own  Manilla  ransom 
most  dishonourably  given  upf,  it  has  all  been  owing  to  the 

*  Corsica,  in  modern  times,  was  first  subjugated  by  the  Genoese,  who 
made  use  of  so  much  insolence  and  oppression,  as  to  induce  the  natives  to 
throw  off'  the  yoke,  and  endeavour  to  recover  their  independence.  The 
contest  was  long  and  severe,  and  the  Corsicans  were  reduced  to  beggary 
in  the  generous  struggle.  Nieuhoff  and  Paoli  chiefly  figured  as  leaders  of 
the  Corsicans,  the  first  of  whom  was  actually  elected  king,  but  could  not 
maintain  his  throne  against  the  invaders.  The  Corsicans  applied  to  many 
foreign  courts  for  assistance,  and  among  the  rest  to  Great  Britain;  and 
Lord  Shelburne  (afterwards  Marquis  of  Lansdown)  was  one  of  the  warm- 
est supporters  of  their  cause,  and  most  desirous,  when  in  administration, 
to  engage  in  it.  But  his  colleagues  opposed  him,  and  the  cause  of  Corsica 
was  abandoned,  though  the  citizens  of  London  contributed  largely  to  its 
support.  Yet  the  Genoese  could  not  totally  subdue  it;  and  in  consequence 
thev  sold  it  to  France  to  be  subdued  by  the  French  arms:  and  the  tyran- 
ny which  was  at  first  exercised  over  it  by  the  Genoese,  it  was  now  doom- 
ed to  suffer  from  the  French.  Reader,  mark  the  result! — Corsica  is  at  this 
moment  reaping  an  ample  revenge:  for  through  the  medium  of  Bonaparte 
she  is  now  loading  both  France  and  Genoa  with  as  severe  a  tyranny  as  her- 
self ever  submitted  to  from  either.  Edit. 

|  In  the  preceding  war  with  Spain,  Sir  William  (then  Col.  Draper)  had 
commanded  an  expedition  against  the  Spanish  settlements  in  the  Philip- 
pine Isles.  It  succeeded  completely;  and  the  capital  of  Manilla  was  taken 
by  assault.  Yet  the  generous  conquerors,  instead  of  plundering  the  city, 
consented  to  accept  for  the  value  of  the  spoil,  bills  drawn  upon  the  Span- 
ish government  adequate  to  its  supposed  amount.  These  bills  the  Spanish 
government  undertook  to  pay,  but  dishonourably  forfeited  its  word  on  their 
becoming  due.  Sir  William  Draper,  on  his  return  from  India,  repeatedly 
pressed  the  English  minister  to  interpose  upon  the  subject,  on  behalf  of 
himself  and  his  fellow-soldiers.  The  English  minister  however  did  not  in- 
terpose: Draper  was  personally  rewarded  by  an  election  into  the  order  of 
the  Bath,  in  conjunction  with  certain  pecuniary  emoluments  referred  to  in 
this  correspondence;  while  his  colleague,  Admiral  Cornish,  together  with 
the  soldiers  and  sailors  under  their  commands  were  suffered  to  live  and 
die  altogether  without  redress.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  47 

malice  of  political  writers,  who  will  not  suffer  the  best  and 
brightest  of  characters  (meaning  still  the  present  ministry) 
to  take  a  single  right  step  for  the  honour  or  interest  of  the 
nation.  But  it  seems  you  were  a  little  tender  of  coming  to 
particulars.  Your  conscience  insinuated  to  you,  that  it  would 
be  prudent  to  leave  the  characters  of  Grafton,  North,  Hills- 
borough, Weymouth,  and  Mansfield,  to  shift  for  themselves; 
and  truly,  Sir  William,  the  part  you  have  undertaken  is  at 
least  as  much  as  you  are  equal  to. 

Without  disputing  Lord  Granby's  courage,  we  are  yet  to 
learn  in  what  articles  of  military  knowledge  nature  has  been 
so  very  liberal  to  his  mind.  If  you  have  served  with  him, 
you  ought  to  have  pointed  out  some  instances  of  able  dispo- 
sition and  well- concerted  enterprize,  which  might  fairly  be 
attributed  to  his  capacity  as  a  general.  It  is  you,  Sir  Wil- 
liam, who  make  your  friend  appear  aukward  and  ridiculous, 
by  giving  him  a  laced  suit  of  tawdry  qualifications,  which 
nature  never  intended  him  to  wear. 

You  sav,  he  has  acquired  nothing  but  honour  in  the  field. 
Is  the  Ordnance  nothing?  Are  the  Blues  nothing?  Is  the 
command  of  the  army,  with  all  the  patronage  annexed  to  it, 
nothing?  Where  he  got  these  7iothings  I  know  not;  but  you 
at  least  ought  to  have  told  us  where  he  deserved  them. 

As  to  his  bounty,  compassion,  &c.  it  would  have  been  but 
little  to  the  purpose,  though  you  had  proved  all  that  you  have 
asserted.  I  meddle  with  nothing  but  his  character  as  com- 
mander in  chief;  and  though  I  acquit  him  of  the  baseness  of 
selling  commissions,  I  still  assert  that  his  military  cares  have 
never  extended  beyond  the  disposal  of  vacancies;  and  I  am 
justified  by  the  complaints  of  the  whole  army,  when  I  say 
that,  in  this  distribution,  he  consults  nothing  but  parliamen- 
tary interests,  or  the  gratification  of  his  immediate  depen- 
dants. As  to  his  servile  submission  to  the  reigning  minis- 
try, let  me  ask,  whether  he  did  not  desert  the  cause  of  the 
whole  army,  when  he  suffered  Sir  Jeffery  Amherst  to  be  sa- 
crificed*, and  what  share  he  had  in  recalling  that  officer  to 

*  See  upon  this  subject  our  author's  Miscellaneous  Letters  subscribed 
Lucius,  and  particularly  that  of  Atticus,  Letter  j.i.  Edit. 


48  LETTERS  OF 

the  servicer  Did  he  not  betray  the  ju3t  interests  of  the  ar- 
my, in  permitting  Lord  Percy  to  have  a  regiment?  And  doe* 
he  not  at  this  moment  give  up  all  character  and  dignity  as  a 
gentleman,  in  receding  from  his  own  repeated  declarations 
in  favour  of  Mr.  Wilkes? 

In  the  two  next  articles  I  think  we  are  agreed.  You  can- 
didly admit,  that  he  often  makes  such  promises  as  it  is  a  vir- 
tue in  him  to  violate,  aud  that  no  man  is  more  assiduous  to 
provide  for  his  relations  at  the  public  expence.  I  did  not 
urge  the  last  as  an  absolute  vice  in  his  disposition,  but  to 
prove  that  a  careless  disinterested  spirit  is  no  part  of  his  cha- 
racter; and  as  to  the  other,  I  desire  it  may  be  remembered, 
that  /never  descended  to  the  indecency  of  inquiring  into  his 
convivial  hours.  It  is  you,  Sir  William  Draper,  who  have 
taken  pains  to  represent  your  friend  in  the  character  of  a 
drunken  landlord,  who  deals  out  his  promises  as  liberally  as 
his  liquor,  and  will  suffer  no  man  to  leave  his  table  either 
sorrowful  or  sober.  None  but  an  intimate  friend,  who  must 
frequently  have  seen  him  in  these  unhappy,  disgraceful  mo- 
ments, could  have  described  him  so  well. 

The  last  charge,  of  the  neglect  of  the  army,  is  indeed  the 
most  material  of  all.  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you,  Sir  William, 
that,  in  this  article,  your  first  fact  is  false;  and  as  there  is 
nothing  more  painful  to  me  than  to  give  a  direct  contradic- 
tion to  a  gentleman  of  your  appearance,  I  could  wish  that, 
in  your  future  publications,  you  would  pay  a  greater  atten- 
tion to  the  truth  of  your  premises,  before  you  suffer  your 
"■emus  to  hurry  you  to  a  conclusion.  Lord  Ligonier  did  not 
deliver  the  army  (which  you,  in  classical  language,  are 
pleased  to  call  a  palladium)  into  Lord  Granby's  hands.  It 
was  taken  from  him  much  against  his  inclination,  some  two 
or  three  years  before  Lord  Granby  was  commander  in  chief. 
As  to  the  state  of  the  army,  I  should  be  glad  to  know  where 
you  have  received  your  intelligence.  Was  it  in  the  rooms  at 
Bath,  or  at  your  retreat  at  Clifton?  The  reports  of  review- 
ing generals  comprehend  only  a  few  regiments  in  England, 
which,  as  they  are  immediately  under  the  royal  inspection, 
are  perhaps  in  some  tolerable  order.  But  do  you  know  any 


JUNIUS.  49 

thing  of  the  troops  in  the  West-Indies,  the  Mediterranean, 
and  North  America,  to  say  nothing  of  a  whole  army  abso- 
lutely ruined  in  Ireland?  Inquire  a  little  into  facts,  Sir  Wil- 
liam, before  you  publish  your  next  panegyric  upon  Lord 
Granby,  and  believe  me,  you  will  find  there  is  a  fault  at 
head-quarters,  which  even  the  acknowledged  care  and  abili- 
ties of  the  adjutant-general  cannot  correct.* 

Permit  me  now,  Sir  William,  to  address  myself  person- 
ally to  you,  by  way  of  thanks  for  the  honour  of  your  corres- 
pondence. You  are  by  no  means  undeserving  of  notice;  and 
it  may  be  of  consequence  even  to  Lord  Granby  to  have  it 
determined,  whether  or  no  the  man  who  has  praised  him  so 
lavishly,  be  himself  deserving  of  praise.  When  you  returned 
to  Europe,  you  zealously  undertook  the  cause  of  that  gal- 
lant army,  by  whose  bravery  at  Manilla  your  own  fortune 
had  been  established.  You  complained,  you  threatened,  you 
even  appealed  to  the  public  in  print.  By  what  accident  did  it 
happen,  that  in  the  midst  of  all  this  bustle,  and  all  these  cla- 
mours for  justice  to  your  injured  troops,  the  name  of  the 
Manilla  ransom  was  suddenly  buried  in  a  profound,  and, 
since  that  time,  an  uninterrupted  silence?  Did  the  ministry 
suggest  any  motives  to  you,  strong  enough  to  tempt  a  man 
of  honour,  to  desert  and  betray  the  cause  of  his  fellow-sol- 
diers? Was  it  that  blushing  ribband,  which  is  now  the  per- 
petual ornament  of  your  person?  Or  was  it  that  regiment, 
which  you  afterwards  (a  thing  unprecedented  among  sol- 
diers) sold  to  colonel  Gisborne?  Or  was  it  that  government, 
the  full  pay  of  which  you  are  contented  to  hold,  with  the 
half-pay  of  an  Irish  colonel?  And  do  you  now,  after  a  retreat 
not  very  like  that  of  Scipio,  presume  to  intrude  yourself,  un- 
thought-of,  uncalled-for,  upon  the  patience  of  the  public? 
Are  your  flatteries  of  the  commander  in  chief  directed  to 
another  regiment,  which  you  may  again  dispose  of  on  the 
same  honourable  terms?  We  know  your  prudence,  Sir  Wil- 
;  Ham,  and  I  should  be  sorry  to  stop  your  preferment. 

JUNIUS. 

*  Adjutant  General  Harvey.  Edit. 

Vol.  I.  G 


50  LETTERS  OF 


LETTER  IV. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  17  February,  1/69. 

I  received  Junius's  favour  last  night;  he  is  determined 
to  keep  his  advantage  by  the  help  of  his  mask;  it  is  an  excel- 
lent protection,  it  has  saved  many  a  man  from  an  untimely 
end.  But  whenever  he  will  be  honest  enough  to  lay  it  aside, 
avow  himself,  and  produce  the  face  which  has  so  long  lurk- 
ed behind  it,  the  world  will  be  able  to  judge  of  his  motives 
for  writing  such  infamous  invectives.  His  real  name  will 
discover  his  freedom  and  independency,  or  his  servility  to  a 
faction.  Disappointed  ambition,  resentment  for  defeated 
hopes,  and  desire  of  revenge,  assume  but  too  often  the  ap- 
pearance of  public  spirit;  but  be  his  designs  wicked  or  chari- 
table, Junius  should  learn  that  it  is  possible  to  condemn 
measures,  without  a  barbarous  and  criminal  outrage  against 
men.  Junius  delights  to  mangle  carcases  with  a  hatchet;  his 
language  and  instrument  have  a  great  connexion  with  Clare- 
market,  and,  to  do  him  justice,  he  handles  his  weapon  most 
admirably.  One  would  imagine  he  had  been  taught  to  throw 
it  by  the  savages  of  America.  It  is  therefore  high  time  for 
me  to  step  in  once  more  to  shield  my  friend  from  this  mer- 
ciless weapon,  although  I  may  be  wounded  in  the  attempt. 
But  I  must  first  ask  Junius,  by  what  forced  analogy  and 
construction  the  moments  of  convivial  mirth  are  made  to 
signify  indecency,  a  violation  of  engagements,  a  drunken 
landlord,  and  a  desire  that  every  one  in  company  should  be 
drunk  likewise*?  He  must  have  culled  all  the  flowers  of  St. 
Giles's  and  Billingsgate  to  have  produced  such  a  piece  of 

*  Whether  such  a  conclusion  were  forced  or  natural  from  Sir  William's 
description  of  his  friend,  Junius,  it  seems,  was  not  the  only  person  who 
deduced  it,  if  we  may  judge  from  a  dispute  the  Knight  of  the  Bath  wa6 
involved  in  upon  this  very  subject,  with  two  other  invisible  correspon- 
dents, of  whom  the  one  signed  himself  Neocles,  and  the  other  the  Ghost, 
and  who  wrote  in  the  same  newspaper  (The  Public  Advertiser)-  To  the 
first  correspondent,  Sir  William  replies  as  follows. 

Sir, 


JUNIUS.  51 

oratory.  Here  the  hatchet  descends  with  tenfold  vengeance; 
but,  alas!  it  hurts  no  one  but  its  master!  For  Junius  must 
not  think  to  put  words  into  my  mouth,  that  seem  too  foul 
even  for  his  own. 

Sir,  Clifton,  Feb.  13,  1769. 

I  must  beg  the  favour  of  Neocles  not  to  believe  that  I  have  described 
my  friend  to  be  frequently  in  a  state  ofebriety.  Had  1  done  so,  I  might  in- 
deed be  justly  accused  of  being  insufficient  to  support  his  cause. 

If  Neocles  is  an  officer,  or  a  man  of  business,  he  must  know  that  a  com- 
mander in  chief,  or  a  minister  of  state,  from  a  multiplicity  of  applications, 
cannot  trust  their  memories  with  the  whole  of  them:  minutes  and  memo- 
randums are  necessary:  when  business  is  over,  these  are  left  with  their 
secretaries,  or  in  their  bureaus.  Should  therefore  any  insidious  man,  either 
at  dinner,  or  after  dinner,  importune  a  great  person  to  give  him  some  pre- 
ferment, which,  from  the  want  of  these  minutes,  he  might  not  then  re- 
collect to  be  engaged,  and  thus  obtain  a  promise  of  it;  yet,  if  it  should 
appear  from  the  inspection  of  these  memorandums  afterwards,  that  such 
preferment  was  pre-engaged,  I  must  again  repeat,  that  in  such  a  case  it 
would  be  a  virtue  to  break  the  unguarded  promise  made  at  dinner,  or  in 
convivial  mirth,  and  to  adhere  to  the  first  engagement.  These  things  have 
happened,  do  happen,  and  may  happen  again,  to  the  most  temperate  men 
living. 

I  am 

Neocles  most  humble  servant, 

W.  D. 

The  fact  is,  that  Lord  Granby,  and  his  friend  Sir  William,  appear  to 
have  been  both  jolly  companions.  Mr.  Campbell  says  of  the  latter — that 
his  favorite  wine  was  Burgundy — the  bewitching  smiles  of  which  had  an 
irresistible  influence  on  his  heart.  Life  of  Boyd,  p.  186.  Junius  seems 
to  have  appealed  to  a  known  fact,  as  well  as  to  an  unguarded  expression 
of  the  pen.  Sir  William's  answer  to  the  Ghost  occurs  in  the  same  news- 
paper, Mar.  2,  1769. 

Sir,  Clifton,  Feb.  24. 

"  Sir  W.  D.  presents  his  compliments  to  the  Ghost,  and  hopes,  that  when 
he  shall  please  to  revisit  us,  the  cock  may  not  crow  too  suddenly,  and  warn 
him  hence,  before  he  has  sufficiently  considered  what  Sir  W.  says  with 
regard  to  anonymous  writers.  They  are  not  condemned  by  him  merely  for 
being  anonymous,  but  as  they  are  defamatory  and  wicked;  as  they  act  as 
incendiaries,  as  they  privily  shoot  at  those  who  are  true  of  Iwart,  and  as 
they  basely  stab  in  the  dark.  When  they  are  thus  guilty,  they  are  worthy 
of  the  severest  censures.  A  very  fine  writer,  Mr.  Addison,  has  not  stuck 
to  rank  them  with  murderers  and  assassins.  It  were  to  be  wished,  that  all 
such  writers  would  read  the  paper  upon  this  subject,  No.  451,  vol.  6.  Sir 
W  hopes  likewise,  that  the  Ghost  will  not  believe,  that  flattery,  or  gladia- 
torial 


$£  LETTERS  OF 

My  friend's  political  engagements  I  know  not,  so  cannot 
pretend  to  explain  them,  or  assert  their  consistency.  I  know 
not  whether  Junius  be  considerable  enough  to  belong  to  any 
party;  if  he  should  be  so,  can  he  affirm  that  he  has  always 

torial  vanity,  or  any  desire  of  the  golden  cup,  or  its  contents,  called  him 
forth. 

"  He  stood  forth  upon  a  principle  that  no  honest  man  should  be  ashamed 
of,  upon  the  principle  of  Horace,  who  nobly  and  truly  said, 
— — — —  Jlmicum 
Shti  nmi  defendit  alio  culpante — Hie  niger  est; 
more  especially  when  that  friend  is  most  unjustly  attacked.  He  thinks 
that  a  real  signature  is  better  than  a  fictitious  one,  as  the  knowledge  of 
the  man  is  the  surest  guide  to  form  a  judgment  of  his  motives  for  writing. 
He  has  indeed  the  vanity  to  think  that  no  man  living  writes  from  more  dis- 
interested motives  than  himself,  having  studiously  quitted  what  is  called 
the  great  world,  and  all  its  pursuits.  But  he  is  not  so  totally  lost  to  the  sense 
of  worldly  knowledge,  as  not  to  foresee  that  the  many  distractions  of  this 
poor  afflicted  country  must  end  in  its  ruin  if  some  salutary  means  are  not 
speedily  taken  to  prevent  it  This  kingdom  abounds  with  great  men, 
capable  of  advising  and  of  acting  in  the  most  efficacious  manner  for  the 
public  good;  but  unanimity  must  be  the  basis.  If  they  can  be  prevailed 
upon  to  forgive,  to  forget,  to  unite,  sincerely,  there  is  no  occasion  to  despair 
of  the  commonwealth  Sir  W.  cannot  subscribe  to  the  Ghost's  opinion, 
that  the  vox  populi  is  the  vox  Dei.  It  would  be  too  irreverent,  it  would 
vainly  attempt  to  convert  the  immutable  Deity  into  a  most  changeable  and 
capricious  being;  nor  would  he  take  even  the  Ghost's  word,  or  that  of  the 
greatest  lawyer  in  the  kingdom,  should  he  affirm  it.  The  voice  of  the  peo- 
ple was  heard  loudly  and  strongly  in  favour  of  our  great  minister,  Mr.  Pitt. 
In  this  one  instance  it  was  just;  but  was  it  formerly  less  strong,  less  loud, 
in  the  favour  of  Titus  Oates,  the  most  abandoned  of  men?  the  voice  of  the 
people,  and  the  voice  of  truth,  are  not  always  together:  the  latter  must 
descend  from  above,  the  former  but  too  often  arises  from  below.  In  plain 
English,  it  generally  comes  out  of  the  barrel  and  the  cellar,  as  some  honest 
fcottle-men  know  full  well." 

In  the  following  letter,  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser  about  the  same 
time,  Lord  Granby  appears  to  have  found  a  fuller,  if  not  an  abler  advocate, 
than  even  his  friend  Sir  William.  It  has  various  claims  for  an  introduction 
in  the  present  place;  but  chiefly,  because  Junius  himself,  in  a  postscript 
to  the  last  letter  (inserted  in  the  copy  that  appeared  in  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser, but  omitted  in  his  own  edition)  notices  it  with  a  view  of  answering 
it;  although  from  a  second  resolution,  not  to  reply  under  this  signature  to 
anonymous  addresses,  he  never  fulfilled  his  intention.  The  postscript  is  as 
follows: 

"  I  had  determined  to  leave  the  commander  in  chief  in  the  quiet  enjoy- 
jnent  of  his  friend  and  his  bottle;  but  Titus  deserves  an  answer,  and  shall 
have  a  complete  one." 

TO 


JUNIUS.  5jJ 

adhered  to  one  set  of  men  and  measures?  Is  he  sure  that  he 
has  never  sided  with  those  whom  he  was  first  hired  to  abuse? 
Has  he  never  abused  those  he  was  hired  to  praise?  To  say 
the  truth,  most  men's  politics   sit  much  too  loosely  about 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 

Long  and  impatiently  have  I  waited  to  see  justice  done  to  a  much  in- 
jured character.  From  the  goodness  of  the  cause,  my  expectations  were 
great,  but  I  have  been  cruelly  disappointed.  To  enter  the  lists  against  such 
an  able  antagonist  upon  equal  terms,  would  be  the  height  of  presumption; 
but  truth,  plainly  and  simply  told,  I  doubt  not,  will  shew  itself  superior  to 
falsehood,  though  dressed  in  the  most  beautiful  language  of  the  elegant 
Junius. 

Unprejudiced  by  party,  unbiassed  by  faction,  it  grieves  me  exceedingly, 
that  a  spirit  of  licentiousness  should  be  able  so  far  to  influence  some  of 
the  greatest  geniuses  of  this  nation.  Is  it  possible  to  see  without  concern 
some  of  the  most  respectable  names,  and  the  most  unexceptionable  cha- 
racters, so  undeservedly  attacked,  and  detraction  conveyed  in  the  most 
persuasive  language,  from  the  masterly  pen  of  an  accomplished  writer? 
When  every  man  of  superior  talents  ought  to  exert  himself  to  the  utmost 
to  support  the  dignity  of  government,  how  unfortunate  is  it  that  the  great- 
est abilities  are  made  subservient  to  a  factious  spirit,  totally  subversive  of 
all  the  principles  of  social  happiness!  But  the  times  are  become  so  unpar- 
donably  licentious,  that  the  greater  the  name,  the  higher  the  rank,  the 
more  dignified  the  character,  and  the  more  exalted  the  station,  the  more 
they  become  objects  of  envy,  while  the  envenomed  darts  of  illiberal  abuse 
are  pointed  by  the  sons  of  sedition  from  every  quarter,  with  unparalleled 
malice  and  unrelenting  fury. 

Subordination  and  subjection  is  the  province  of  some;  superiority  and 
command  undoubtedly  belongs  to  the  station  of  others.  Obedience  to  the 
laws,  respect  for  the  magistrate,  and  duty  to  superiors,  are  essentially 
necessary  in  every  well  governed  state.  Every  attempt  then  to  make  the 
laws,  or  the  magistrate,  be  less  respected,  and  evesy  endeavour  to  break 
the  chain  of  subordination,  so  necessary  in  civil  society,  tends  to  the 
destruction  of  government,  and  to  the  introduction  of  anarchy  and  con- 
fusion. 

That  factious,  turbulent,  licentious  minds,  should  make  this  their  con- 
stant employment,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at;  but  people  of  sense,  judgment, 
and  abilities,  to  make  it  their  study,  is  amazing  indeed! — What  end  can 
it  answer?  What  purpose  can  it  serve?  If  our  superiors  should  do  any 
thing  contrary  to  the  laws,  or  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  this  country; 
if  they  should  use  any  means  to  encroach  upon  our  liberties,  to  deprive  us 
of  our  privileges,  or  to  subvert  that  happy  form  of  government  which  we 
now  enjoy;  surely  there  are  other  means  of  redress  left,  besides  calumni- 
ating magistrates,  judges,  generals  and  ministers.  Though  party  preju. 

dice, 


54  LETTERS  OF 

them.  But  as  my  friend's  military  character  was  the  chief 
object  that  engaged  me  in  this  controversy,  to  that  I  shall 
return. 

Junius  asks  what  instances  my  friend  has  given  of  his 

dice,  and  the  influence  of  passion,  may  carry  even  men  of  sense  to  extra- 
ordinary lengths  sometimes,  yet  I  am  convinced,  that  a  cool  dispassionate 
moment's  reflection,  will  point  out  more  constitutional  remedies  for  all 
our  misfortunes,  than  a  factious  appeal  to  a  giddy,  unthinking,  uninformed 
mob:  and  very  little  demonstration  will  be  necessary  to  make  it  evident^ 
that  the  unbounded  abuse  of  dignities  tends  to  make  the  bulk  of  the  peo- 
ple trample  on  all  law,  despise  subordination,  and  destroy  that  government 
from  which  they  claim  protection. 

Junius  is  possessed  of  superior  abilitiesf  he  has  a  flow  of  fine  language 
at  his  command,  his  composition  is  masterly,  his  stile  elegant,  and  the 
arrangement  of  his  words  is  beautiful  and  harmonious.  What  excellent 
purposes  might  these  talents  serve,  were  they  employed  for  the  service  of 
his  country!  What  a  pity  they  should  be  prostituted  to  depreciate  govern- 
ment, and  made  subservient  to  such  unphilosophic  passions!  unworthy  of 
the  man — unworthy  of  the  pen  of  the  accomplished  Junius! — Not  one  of 
the  king's  servants  escapes  him;  but  (for  what  cause  heaven  knows)  his 
most  pointed  shafts  have  been  directed  against  the  Commander  in  Chief, 
who  is,  perhaps,  the  most  unexceptionable  character  in  the  present  admin- 
istration. I  was  in  hopes  Sir  W.  Draper  would  hare  continued  a  defence 
so  worthy  of  his  abilities;  but  I  imagine  he  is  so  busy  at  present  about 
building  his  temple  to  Concord,  and  perhaps  so  taken  up  with  his  new 
friend,  Mr.  Wilkes,  that  he  has  forgot  the  correspondence  he  gave  rise  to, 
where  Lord  Granby  is  attacked  in  a  most  unpardonable  manner;  where  he 
has  been  insulted  as  a  soldier,  despised  as  a  general,  his  generosity 
laughed  at,  and  even  his  private  hours  of  social  relaxation  have  been  most 
ungenerously  held  up  as  an  object  of  ridicule  to  the  public  eye.— For 
shame,  Junius! — this  was  not  well  done. — Whatever  censure  may  be  due 
to  a  man's  public  character,  it  is  unmanly — it  is  cruel — it  is  unjust,  to 
bring  the  secrets  of  social  amusement,  and  the  unguarded  hour  of  convi- 
vial enjoyment,  to  be  held  out  as  an  object  of  censure  to  the  unfriendly 
world! — Have  you  a  spark  of  generosity  left,  Junius!  and  can  you  read 
this  without  a  blush? 

My  Lord  Granby's  character,  as  a  man,  as  a  soldier,  and  even  as  a  gen- 
eral, will  stand  the  test.  The  honesty  of  his  heart,  the  integrity  of  his  in- 
tentions, his  intrepidity  as  a  soldier,  and  his  conduct  as  an  officer,  are  un- 
impeached.  It  is  true,  his  talents  as  Commander  in  Chief  have  never  been 
tried  in  the  field;  but  if  we  may  be  allowed  to  judge  from  the  whole  of  his 
conduct  during  the  late  war  in  Germany,  where  the  execution  of  many 
important  enterprises  were  entrusted  to  him  by  one  of  the  greatest  gene- 
rals, and  one  of  the  best  judges  of  military  merit  in  Europe,  we  may  form 
great  expectations,  with  the  highest  probability  of  not  being  disappoint- 
ed. 


JUNIUS.  55 

military  skill  and  capacity  as  a  general?  When  and  where  he 
gained  his  honour?  When  he  deserved  his  emoluments?  The 
united  voice  of  the  army  which  served  under  him,  the  glo- 
rious testimony  of  Prince  Ferdinand,  and  of  vanquished 

ed. — Hekn<ru>s  hoio  to  obey;  he  knows  that  a  good  soldier  tie+er  disputes  the 
commands  of  his  superior.  He  always  discharged  his  duty  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  Duke  Ferdinand,  whose  approbation,  thanks,  and  acknowledg- 
ments he  repeatedly  obtained.  Wherever  he  was  employed,  he  gained 
honour  to  himself — he  was  beloved  and  esteemed  by  the  army  under  his 
command — he  was  honoured  and  respected  by  the  enemy — dear  to  the 
victors!  generous  to  the  vanquished!  You  know,  Junius,  that  he  /tare  d 
not  to  lead  on  the  cavalry  at  Minden.  He  gained  glory  and  honour  at  War- 
burg. It  was  the  corps  under  his  command  who  fought  and  gained  the 
battle  of  Phillinghausen.  He  was  principally  concerned,  and  acted  as  be- 
came the  soldier  and  general  at  Wilhelmstahl.  And  towards  the  end  of 
the  war,  when  the  army  was  so  situated,  that  if  a  rising  ground  on  the 
left  had  been  taken  possession  of  by  the  French,  it  might  have  been  at- 
tended with  the  worst  consequences;  and  when  the  generals  destined  to 
lead  a  corps  to  occupy  it,  declared  the  service  impracticable,  my  Lord 
Granby  arose  from  a  sick-bed,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  assumed  the 
command  of  the  corps,  marched,  with  a  fever  upon  him,  in  an  inclement 
season,  took  possession  of  the  post,  and  secured  the  army. — This  did  the 
soldier! 

Is  it  necessary  to  ask  where  my  Lord  deserved  every  thing  he  has  got 
after  this?  These  are  but  few  instances,  among  many  others,  where  his 
Lerdship  acquired  unfading  laurels.  But  after  all,  what  are  the  posts — 
what  are  the  employments  of  trust  and  profit  which  be  has  centered  in 
himself  and  family,  since  he  became  Commander  in  Chief?  He  is  at  the 
head  of  the  army  without  pay;  one  of  the  name  of  Manners  has  been  pro- 
moted from  half-pay  to  a  troop,  and  another  he  has  appointed  his  aid-de- 
camp: and  those  of  his  friends,  who  have  been  distinguished  by  royal  fa- 
vour, are  so  eminent  in  their  profession,  that  hitherto  the  tongue  of  malice 
has  not  dared  to  move  against  them.  His  own  employments  are  marks  of 
royal  favour  and  confidence,  the  consequence  of  long  and  faithful  servi- 
ces.— These  were  not  acquired  by  factious  conduct,  or  licentious  scribbling: 
no,  Sir,  he,  like  every  man  of  honour,  would  disdain  to  be  distinguished  by 
such  inglorious  means. 

Well  do  you  know,  Junius,  that  it  would  have  been  in  vain  for  my  Lord 
Granby  to  have  opposed  the  nomination  of  my  Lord  Percy;  and  you  know 
as  well,  that  this  is  not  the  first  time  ministerial  influence  has  been  too 
powerful  for  a  military  commander.  It  is  equally  ungenerous  and  unjust 
therefore,  to  say  that  he  has  betrayed  the  interests  of  the  army.  It  is  well 
known,  that  the  general  condition  of  the  army  is  better,  much  better,  at 
present,  than  it  has  been  for  many  years,  even  in  America,  and  the  garri- 
sons abroad:  your  information  therefore  is  ill  founded  in  this  point;  but  the 

truth 


56  LETTERS  OF 

enemies,  all  Germany  will  tell  him.  Junius  repeats  the  com- 
plaints of  the  army  against  parliamentary  influence.  I  love 
the  army  too  well,  not  to  wish  that  such  influence  were  less. 
Let  Junius  point  out  the  time  when  it  has  not  prevailed.  It 
was  of  the  least  force  in  the  time  of  that  great  man,  the  late 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  who,  as  a  prince  of  the  blood,  was  able 
as  well  as  willing  to  stem  a  torrent  which  would  have  over- 
borne any  private  subject.  In  time  of  war  this  influence  is 
small.  In  peace,  when  discontent  and  faction  have  the  surest 
means  to  operate,  especially  in  this  country,  and  when,  from 
a  scarcity  of  public  spirit,  the  wheels  of  goverment  are  rarely 

truth  is,  Junius  is  no  friend  to  Lord  Granby,  and  is  willing  to  believe, 
and  ready  to  propagate  every  infamous  report  to  his  disadvantage. 

My  Lord  Granby's  generosity,  Sir,  knows  no  bounds;  but  it  is  directed 
to  much  nobler  objects  than  you  would  endeavour  to  insinuate.  Often  have 
I  seen  his  generous  hand  stretched  out  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  needy 
soldier;  nor  did  the  meanest  follower  of  the  camp  go  hungry  from  his  door. 
His  house  was  open  equally  to  British  and  foreigners:  his  table  was  hos- 
pitality itself,  and  his  generous,  open  countenance  gave  a  hearty  welcome 
to  all  his  guests.  Hence  harmony  reigned  through  the  whole  army,  dis- 
putes had  no  existence,  and  officers  of  different  nations  emulated  the  social 
virtues  of  the  British  chief.  By  such  means  he  gained  the  hearts  of  all  the 
army;  they  followed  him  with  confidence,  and  fought  under  him  from  at- 
tachment. No  danger  was  too  much — no  attempt  too  daring,  under  his 
command.  Whatever  Junius  may  think  (though  he  may,  for  aught  I 
know,  be  perfectly  unacquainted  with  them  himself)  the  gaining  the  affections 
of  the  soldiers  will  always  be  esteemed  no  mean  qualification  in  a  general. 

My  Lord  Granby  has  his  foibles  and  weaknesses,  no  doubt  of  it;  so  has 
every  man.  Is  there  one  on  earth  perfect?  But  to  expose  these  foibles  and 
weaknesses  with  all  the  power  of  persuasive  language,  while  you  conceal, 
slightly  pass  over,  or  endeavour  to  ridicule  those  shining  parts  of  his  cha- 
racter, those  eminent  virtues  which  you  cannot  imitate,  it  is  ungenerous, 
and  very  unlike  the  gentleman. 

You  will  forgive  me  I  hope,  Mr.  Printer,  for  troubling  you  with  an  epis- 
tle of  such  an  amazing  length;  but  I  hope  you  will  think  with  me,  that  the 
subject  required  it.  I  acknowledge  myself  very  unequal  to  speak  of  my 
Lord  as  he  deserves;  but  I  have  attempted  this  much,  from  an  opinion 
that  when  such  an  unexceptionable  character  is  attacked,  the  defence  be- 
comes a  public  concern.  It  matters  not,  whether  the  malicious  dart  be 
pointed  from  the  closet  courage  of  a  disgraced  soldier,  the  oratorical  pow- 
ers of  a  disappointed  dependant  politician,  or  from  the  mad  ravings  of  a 
lunatic  adventurer;  the  sensible,  unprejudiced  part  of  mankind  will  see 
their  infamous  motives,  and  they  will  alike  despise  the  illiberal  produc 
tion  and  the  ungenerous  author.   Titus. 


JUNIUS.  57 

moved,  but  by  the  power  and  force  of  obligations,  its  weight 
is  always  too  great.  Yet,  if  this  influence  at  present  has  done 
no  greater  harm  than  the  placing  Earl  Percy  at  the  head  of 
a  regiment,  I  do  not  think  that  either  the  rights  or  best  in- 
terests of  the  army  are  sacrificed  and  betrayed,  or  the  nation 
undone.  Let  me  ask  Junius,  if  he  knows  any  one  nobleman 
in  the  armv,  who  has  had  a  regiment  by  seniority?  I  feel 
myself  happy  in  seeing  young  noblemen  of  illustrious  name 
and  great  property  come  among  us.  They  are  an  additional 
security  to  the  kingdom  from  foreign  or  domestic  slavery. 
Junius  needs  not  be  told,  that  should  the  time  ever  come, 
when  this  nation  is  to  be  defended  only  by  those,  who  have 
nothing  more  to  lose  than  their  arms  and  their  pay,  its  dan- 
ger will  be  great  indeed.  A  happy  mixture  of  men  of  quality 
with  soldiers  of  fortune  is  always  to  be  wished  for.  But  the 
main  point  is  still  to  be  contended  for,  I  mean  the  discipline 
and  condition  of  the  army,  and  I  still  must  maintain,  though 
contradicted  by  Junius,  that  it  was  never  upon  a  more  res- 
pectable footing,  as  to  all  the  essentials  that  can  form  good 
soldiers,  than  it  is  at  present.  Junius  is  forced  to  allow  that 
our  army  at  home  may  be  in  some  tolerable  order;  yet  how 
kindly  does  he  invite  our  late  enemies  to  the  invasion  of  Ire- 
land, by  assuring  them  that  the  army  in  that  kingdom  is  to- 
tally ruined!  (The  colonels  of  that  army  are  much  obliged 
to  him.)  I  have  too  great  an  opinion  of  the  military  talents 
of  the  lord-lieutenant,  and  of  their  diligence  and  capacity,  to 
believe  it.  If  from  some  strange,  unaccountable  fatality,  the 
people  of  that  kingdom  cannot  be  induced  to  consult  their 
own  security,  by  such  an  effectual  augmentation,  as  may  ena- 
ble the  troops  there  to  act  with  power  and  energy,  is  the 
commander  in  chief  here  to  blame?  Or  is  he  to  blame,  be- 
cause the  troops  in  the  Mediterranean,  in  the  West  Indies, 
in  America,  labour  under  great  difficulties  from  the  scarcity 
of  men,  which  is  but  too  visible  all  over  these  kingdoms? 
Many  of  our  forces  are  in  climates  unfavourable  to  British 
constitutions:  their  loss  is  in  proportion.  Britain  must  re- 
cruit all  these  regiments  from  her  own  emaciated  bosom,  or, 
more  precariously,  by  Catholics  from  Ireland.  We  are  like- 
Vox.-  I.  H 


58  LETTERS  OF 

wise  subject  to  the  fatal  drains  to  the  East  Indies,  to  Sene- 
gal, and  the  alarming  emigrations  of  our  people  to  other 
countries:  Such  depopulation  can  only  be  repaired  by  a  long 
peace,  or  by  some  sensible  bill  of  naturalization. 

I  must  now  take  the  liberty  to  talk  to  Junius  on  my  own 
account.  He  is  pleased  to  tell  me  that  he  addresses  himself 
to  me  personally.  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  him.  It  is  his  imper- 
sonality that  I  complain  of,  and  his  invisible  attacks;  for  his 
dagger  in  the  air  is  only  to  be  regarded,  because  one  cannot 
see  the  hand  which  holds  it;  but  had  he  not  wounded  other 
people  more  deeply  than  myself,  I  should  not  have  obtruded 
myself  at  all  on  the  patience  of  the  public. 

Mark  how  a  plain  tale  shall  put  him  down,  and  transfuse 
the  blush  of  my  ribband  into  his  own  cheeks.  Junius  tells 
me,  that  at  my  return,  I  zealously  undertook  the  cause  of 
the  gallant  army,  by  whose  bravery  at  Manilla  my  own  for- 
tunes were  established;  that  I  complained,  that  I  even  ap- 
pealed to  the  public.  I  did  so;  I  glory  in  having  done  so,  as 
I  had  an  undoubted  right  to  vindicate  my  own  character,  at- 
tacked by  a  Spanish  memorial,  and  to  assert  the  rights  of  my 
brave  companions.  I  glory  likewise  that  I  have  never  taken 
up  my  pen,  but  to  vindicate  the  injured.  Junius  asks  by  what 
accident  did  it  happen,  that  in  the  midst  of  all  this  bustle, 
and  all  these  clamours  for  justice  to  the  injured  troops,  the 
Manilla  ransom  was  suddenly  buried  in  a  profound,  and, 
since  that  time,  an  uninterrupted  silence?  I  will  explain  the 
cause  to  the  public.  The  several  ministers  who  have  been 
employed  since  that  time  have  been  very  desirous  to  do  us 
justice  from  two  most  laudable  motives,  a  strong  inclination 
to  assist  injured  bravery,  and  to  acquire  a  well  deserved  po- 
pularity to  themselves.  Their  efforts  have  been  in  vain. 
Some  were  ingenuous  enough  to  own,  that  they  could  not 
think  of  involving  this  distressed  nation  into  another  war  for 
our  private  concerns.  In  short,  our  rights  for  the  present,  are 
sacrificed  to  national  convenience;  and  I  must  confess,  that 
although  1  may  lose  five-and-twenty  thousand  pounds  by 
their  acquiescence  to  this  breach  of  faith  in  the  Spaniards,  I 
think  they  are  in  the  right  to  temporize,  considering  the 


JUNIUS.  £9 

critical  situation  of  this  country,  convulsed  in  every  part  by 
poison  infused  by  anonymous,  wicked,  and  incendiary  wri- 
ters. Lord  Shelburne  will  do  me  the  justice  to  own,  that,  in 
September  last,  I  waited  upon  him  with  a  joint  memorial 
from  the  admiral  Sir  S.  Cornish  and  myself,  in  behalf  of  our 
injured  companions.  His  lordship  was  as  frank  upon  the  oc- 
casion as  other  secretaries  had  been  before  him.  He  did  not 
deceive  us  by  giving  any  immediate  hopes  of  relief. 

Junius  would  basely  insinuate,  that  my  silence  may  have 
been  purchased  by  my  government,  by  my  blushing  ribband, 
by  my  regiment,  by  the  sale  of  that  regiment,  and  by  my 
half-pay  as  an  Irish  colonel. 

His  Majesty  was  pleased  to  give  me  my  government*,  for 
my  services  at  Madras.  I  had  my  first  regiment  in  1757". 
Upon  my  return  from  Manilla,  his  Majesty,  by  Lord  Egre- 
mont,  informed  me,  that  I  should  have  the  first  vacant  red 
ribband,  as  a  reward  for  my  services  in  an  ent<:rprize,  which 
I  had  plmned  as  well  as  executed.  The  duke  of  Bedford 
and  Mr.  Grenville  confirmed  those  assurances  many  months 
before  the  Spaniards  had  protested  the  ransom  bills.  To  ac- 
commodate Lord  Clive,  then  going  upon  a  most  important 
service  to  Bengal,  I  waved  my  claim  to  the  vacancy  which 
then  happened.  As  there  was  no  other  vacancy  until  the 
Duke  of  Grafton  and  Lord  Rockingham  were  joint  minis- 
ters, I  was  then  honoured  with  the  order,  and  it  is  surely  no 
small  honour  to  me,  that  in  such  a  succession  of  ministers, 
they  were  all  pleased  to  think  that  I  had  deserved  it;  in  my 
favour  they  were  all  united.  Upon  the  reduction  of  the  79th 
regiment,  which  had  served  so  gloriously  in  the  East  Indies, 
his  Majesty,  unsolicited  by  me,  gave  me  the  16th  of  foot  as 
an  equivalent.  My  motives  for  retiring  afterwards  are  foreign 
to  the  purpose;  let  it  suffice,  that  his  Majesty  was  pleased  to 
approve  of  them;  they  are  such  as  no  man  can  think  inde- 
cent, who  knows  the  shocks  that  repeated  vicissitudes  of 
heat  and  cold,  of  dangerous  and  sickly  climates,  will  give  to 
the  best  constitutions  in  a  pretty  long  course  of  service.  I 
resigned  my  regiment  to  Colonel  Gisborne,  a  very  good  offi- 

*  Yarmouth.  Edit. 


60  LETTERS  OF 

cer,  for  his  half-pay,  200/.  Irish  annuity*;  so  that,  according 
to  Junius,  I  have  been  bribed  to  say  nothing  more  of  the 
Manilla  ransom,  and  sacrifice  those  brave  men  by  the  strange 
avarice  of  accepting  three  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  per 
annum,  and  giving  up  eight  hundred!  If  this  be  bribery,  it 
is  not  the  briberv  of  these  times.  As  to  my  flattery,  those 
who  know  me  will  judge  of  it.  By  the  asperity  of  Junius'b 
stile,  I  cannot  indeed  call  him  a  flatterer,  unless  it  be  as  a 
cynic  or  a  mastiff;  if  he  wags  his  tail,  he  will  still  growl,  and 
long  to  bite.  The  public  will  now  judge  of  the  credit  that 
ought  to  be  given  to  Junius's  writings,  from  the  falsities 
that  he  has  insinuated  with  respect  to  myself. 

WILLIAM  DRAPER. 


LETTER  V. 


TO  SIR  WILLIAM   DRAPER,   KNIGHT  OF  THE  BATH. 

Sir,  21  February,  1769. 

I  should  justly  be  suspected  of  acting  upon  motives  of 
more  than  common  enmity  to  Lord  Granby,  if  I  continued 
to  give  you  fresh  materials  or  occasion  for  writing  in  his  de- 
fence. Individuals  who  hate,  and  the  public  who  despise 
him,  have  read  your  letters,  Sir  William,  with  infinitely  more 
satisfaction  than  mine.  Unfortunately  for  him,  his  reputa- 
tion, like  that  unhappy  country  to  which  you  refer  me  for  his 
last  military  achievements,  has  suffered  more  by  his  friends 

*  The  letter,  as  it  appeared  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  stated,  by  mis- 
take, "  t-wefoe  hundred  pounds  Irish  annuity!"  and  the  error  has  been 
hitherto  propagated  through  every  edition  of  Junius's  Letters,  without  a 
single  exception.  In  a  note  addressed  to  the  printer,  however,  and  pub- 
lished in  the  same  newspaper,  Feb.  22,  1769,  the  mistake  is  announced, 
and  corrected  as  follows. 
Sir, 
I  beg  the  favour  of  you  to  correct  the  following  error  in  my  answer  to 
Junius 

Instead  of  1200/.  please  to  put,  "  and  200/.  Irish  annuity." 

I  am,  Sir, 

Yours,  &c. 

W.  DRAPER. 
Feb.  19.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  61 

than  his  enemies.  In  mercy  to  him,  let  us  drop  the  subject. 
For  mv  own  part,  I  willingly  leave  it  to  the  public  to  deter- 
mine whether  your  vindication  of  your  friend  has  been  as 
able  and  judicious,  as  it  was  certainly  well  intended;  and  you, 
I  think,  may  be  satisfied  with  the  warm  acknowledgments 
he  already  owes  you  for  making  him  the  principal  figure  in 
a  piece,  in  which,  but  for  your  amicable  assistance,  he  might 
have  passed  without  particular  notice  or  distinction. 

In  justice  to  your  friends,  let  your  future  labours  be  con- 
fined to  the  care  of  your  own  reputation.  Your  declaration, 
that  you  are  happy  in  seeing  young  noblemen  come  amoiig  us, 
is  liable  to  two  objections.  With  respect  to  Lord  Percy,  it 
means  nothing,  for  he  was  already  in  the  army.  He  was  aid- 
de-camp  to  the  King,  and  had  the  rank  of  colonel.  A  regi- 
ment therefore  could  not  make  him  a  more  military  man, 
though  it  made  him  richer,  and  probably  at  the  expence  of 
some  brave,  deserving,  friendless  officer. — The  other  con- 
cerns yourself.  After  selling  the  companions  of  your  vic- 
tory in  one  instance,  and  after  selling  your  profession  in  the 
other,  by  what  authority  do  you  presume  to  call  yourself  a 
soldier?  The  plain  evidence  of  facts  is  superior  to  all  de- 
clarations. Before  you  were  appointed  to  the  16th  regiment, 
your  complaints  were  a  distress  to  government; — from  that 
moment  you  were  silent.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable.  You 
insinuate  to  us  that  your  ill  state  of  health  obliged  you  to 
quit  the  service.  The  retirement  necessary  to  repair  a  bro- 
ken constitution  would  have  been  as  good  a  reason  for  not 
accepting,  as  for  resigning  the  command  of  a  regiment. 
There  is  certainly  an  error  of  the  press,  or  an  affected  ob- 
scurity in  that  paragraph,  where  you  speak  of  your  bargain 
with  colonel  Gisborne*.  Instead  of  attempting  to  answer 
what  I  really  do  not  understand,  permit  me  to  explain  to  the 
public  what  I  really  know.  In  exchange  for  your  regiment, 
you  accepted  of  a  colonel's  half-pay  (at  least  220/.  a  year) 
and  an  annuity  of  200/.  for  your  own  and  lady  Draper's  life 
jointly. And  is  this  the  losing  bargain,  which  you  would 

*  See  the  error  corrected  in  the  Editor's  note  to  the  preceding1  Letter 
Edit. 


62  LETTERS  OF 

represent  to  us,  as  if  you  had  given  up  an  income  of  800/.  a 
year  for  380/.?  Was  it  decent,  was  it  honourable,  in  a  man 
who  pretends  to  love  the  army,  and  calls  himself  a  soldier, 
to  make  a  traffic  of  the  roval  favour,  and  turn  the  highest 
honour  of  an  active  profession  into  a  sordid  provision  for 
himself  and  his  family?  It  were  unworthy  of  me  to  press  you 
farther.  The  contempt  with  which  the  whole  army  heard  of 
the  manner  of  your  retreat,  assures  me  that  as  your  conduct 
was  not  justified  by  precedent,  it  will  never  be  thought  an 
example  for  imitation. 

The  last  and  most  important  question  remains.  When  you 
receive  your  half-pay,  do  you,  or  do  you  not,  take  a  solemn 
oath,  or  sign  a  declaration  upon  honour,  to  the  following 
effect?  That  you  do  not  actually  hold  any  place  of  profit,  civil 
or  military,  under  his  Majesty.  The  charge  which  this  ques- 
tion plainly  conveys  against  you,  is  of  so  shocking  a  com- 
plexion, that  I  sincerely  wish  you  may  be  able  to  answer  it 
well,  not  merely  for  the  colour  of  your  reputation,  but  for 
vour  own  inward  peace  of  mind. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  VI. 

TO    JUNIUS. 
Sir,  27  February,  1769. 

I  have  a  very  short  answer  for  Junius's  important  ques- 
tion: I  do  not  either  take  an  oath,  or  declare  upon  honour, 
that  I  have  no  place  of  profit,  civil  or  military,  when  I  receive 
the  half-pay  as  an  Irish  colonel.  My  most  gracious  Sove- 
reign gives  it  me  as  a  pension;  he  was  pleased  to  think  I  de- 
served it.  The  annuity  of  200/.  Irish,  and  the  equivalent  for 
the  half-pay  together,  produce  no  more  than  380/.  per  annum, 
clear  of  fees  and  perquisites  of  office.  I  receive  167/.  from 
my  government  of  Yarmouth.  Total  547/.  per  annum.  My 
conscience  is  much  at  ease  in  these  particulars;  my  friends 
need  not  blush  for  me. 

Junius  makes  much  and  frequent  use  of  interrogations- 


JUNIUS.  63 

they  are  arms  that  may  be  easily  turned  against  himself. 
I  could,  by  malicious  interrogations,  disturb  the  peace  of 
the  most  virtuous  man  in  the  kingdom;  I  could  take  the 
decalogue,  and  say  to  one  man,  Did  you  never  steal?  To  the 
next,  Did  you  never  commit  murder?  And  to  Junius  him- 
self, who  is  putting  my  life  and  conduct  to  the  rack,  Did  you 
never  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour?  Junius  must 
easily  see,  that  unless  he  affirms  the  contrary  in  his  real 
name,  some  people  who  may  be  as  ignorant  of  him  as  I  am, 
will  be  apt  to  suspect  him  of  having  deviated  a  little  from 
the  truth:  therefore  let  Junius  ask  no  more  questions.  You 
bite  against  a  file:  cease  viper.  W.  D. 


LETTER  VII. 

TO  SIR  WILLIAM  DRAPER,  KNIGHT  OF  THE  BATH. 
Sir,  3  March,  1769. 

An  academical  education  has  given  you  an  unlimited  com- 
mand over  the  most  beautiful  figures  of  speech.  Masks, 
hatchets,  racks,  and  vipers  dance  through  your  letters  in  all 
the  mazes  of  metaphorical  confusion.  These  are  the  gloomy 
companions  of  a  disturbed  imagination;  the  melancholy  mad- 
ness of  poetry,  without  the  inspiration.  I  will  not  contend 
with  you  in  point  of  composition.  You  are  a  scholar,  Sir 
William,  and,  if  I  am  truly  informed,  you  write  Latin  with 
almost  as  much  purity  as  English.  Suffer  me  then,  for  I  am 
a  plain  unlettered  man,  to  continue  that  stile  of  interroga- 
tion, which  suits  my  capacity,  and  to  which,  considering  the 
readiness  of  your  answers,  you  ought  to  have  no  objec- 
tion. Even  Mr.  Bingley*  promises  to  answer,  if  put  to  the 
torture. 

*  This  man,  being  committed  by  the  court  of  King's  Bench  for  a  con- 
tempt, voluntarily  made  oath,  that  he  would  never  answer  interrogatories, 
unless  he  should  be  put  to  the  torture.  Author. 

Bingley  was  by  trade  a  bookseller;  and  in  the  character  here  referred 
to,  a  witness  for  the  crown,  in  a  cause  between  government  and  Wilkes. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  for  what  purpose  this  man  was  subpoenaed  on  either 
side;  for  liis  obstinacy  was  so  extreme,  that  he  could  not  be  induced  to 
answer  the  interrogatories  addressed  to  him  on  the  part  either  of  the 

plaintiff 


64  LETTERS  OF 

Do  you  then  really  think  that,  if  I  were  to  ask  a  most  vir- 
tuous man  whether  he  ever  committed  theft,  or  murder,  it 
would  disturb  his  peace  of  mind?  Such  a  question  might 
perhaps  discompose  the  gravity  of  his  muscles,  but  I  believe 
it  would  little  affect  the  tranquillity  of  his  conscience.  Ex- 
amine your  own  breast,  Sir  William,  and  you  will  discover, 
that  reproaches  and  enquiries  have  no  power  to  afflict  either 
the  man  of  unblemished  integrity,  or  the  abandoned  profli- 
gate. It  is  the  middle  compound  character  which  alone  is 
vulnerable:  the  man,  who,  without  firmness  enough  to  avoid 
a  dishonourable  action,  has  feeling  enough  to  be  ashamed 
of  it. 

I  thank  you  for  your  hint  of  the  decalogue,  and  shall  take 
an  opportunity  of  applying  it  to  some  of  your  most  virtuous 
friends  in  both  houses  of  parliament. 

You  seem  to  have  dropped  the  affair  of  your  regiment;  so 
let  it  rest.  When  you  are  appointed  to  another,  I  dare  say 
you  will  not  sell  it  either  for  a  gross  sum,  or  for  an  annuity 
upon  lives. 

I  am  truly  glad  (for  really,  Sir  William,  I  am  not  your 
enemy,  nor  did  I  begin  this  contest  with  you*)  that  you 

plaintiff  or  defendant.  It  was  on  this  account  he  was  committed  to  the 
King's  Bench  prison,  where  he  continued  as  refractory  as  in  the  King's  . 
Bench  court — he  was  at  length  discharged,  on  the  motion  of  the  attorney 
general,  without  any  submission  on  his  own  part,  from  the  mere  idea  that 
he  had  suffered  severely  enough  for  his  contumacy. — See  a  further  account 
of  this  transaction,  Junius,  Letter  xli.  Edit. 

*  The  politics  of  Sir  William  Draper  were  certainly  not  violent,  and  he 
appears  to  have  been  rather  a  private  friend  of  the  Marquis's  than  a  par- 
tisan on  either  side  of  the  question.  The  following  letter,  published  by 
him  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  in  the  very  midst  of  hisdispute  with  Junius, 
is  highly  creditable  to  his  liberality,  and  sufficiently  proves  the  truth  o: 
the  assertion  of  Junius,  that  he  could  not  be,  at  least  upon  political  prin- 
ciples, Sir  William's  enemy. 

TO  THE  PRINTER. 
Sir,  Clifton,  February  6th,  1769. 

If  the  voice  of  a  well-meaning  individual  could  be  heard  amidst  the 
clamour,  fury,  and  madness  of  the  times,  would  it  appear  too  rash  and 
oresumptuons  to  propose  to  the  public  that  an  act  of  indemnity  and  oblivion 
may  be  made  for  all  past  transactions  and  offences,  as  well  with  respect 
to  Mr  Wilkes  as  to  our  colonies?  Such  salutary  expedients  have  been 

embraced 


JUNIUS.  65 

have  been  able  to  clear  yourself  of  a  crime,  though  at  the 
expense  of  the  highest  indiscretion.  You  say  that  your  half- 
pay  was  given  you  by  way  of  pension.  I  will  not  dwell  upon 
the  singularity  of  uniting  in  your  own  person  two  sorts  of 

embraced  by  the  wisest  of  nations:  such  expedients  have  been  made  use 
of  by  our  own,  when  the  public  confusion  had  arrived  to  some  very  dan- 
gerous and  alarming  crisis;  and  I  believe  it  needs  not  the  gift  of  prophecy 
to  foretel  that  some  such  crisis  is  now  approaching.  Perhaps  it  will  be 
more  wise  and  praiseworthy  to  make  such  an  act  immediately,  in  order  to 
prevent  the  possibility  (not  to  say  the  probability)  of  an  insurrection  at 
home  and  in  our  dependencies  abroad,  than  it  will  be  to  be  obliged  to  have 
recourse  to  one  after  the  mischief  has  been  done,  and  the  kingdom  has 
groaned  under  all  the  miseries  that  avarice,  ambition,  hypocrisy,  and  mad- 
ness, could  inflict  upon  it.  An  act  of  grace,  indemnity,  and  oblivion,  was 
passed  at  the  restoration  of  King  Charles  the  second;  but  I  will  venture 
to  say  that  had  such  an  act  been  seasonably  passed  in  the  reign  of  his  un- 
happy father,  the  civil  war  had  been  prevented,  and  no  restoration  had 
been  necessary.  It  is  too  late  to  recal  all  the  messengers  and  edicts  of 
wrath.  Cannot  the  money  that  is  now  wasted  in  endless  and  mutual  pro- 
secutions, and  in  stopping  the  mouth  of  one  person,  and  opening  that  of 
another,  be  better  employed  in  erecting  a  temple  to  Concord?  Let  Mr. 
Wilkes  lay  the  first  stone,  and  such  a  stone  as  I  hope  the  builders  will  not 
refuse.  May  this  parliament,  to  use  Lord  Clarendon's  expression,  be  called 
"  The  healing  parliament!"  May  our  foul  wounds  be  cleansed  and  then 
closed!  The  English  have  been  as  famous  for  goodnature  as  for  valour: 
let  it  not  be  said  that  such  qualities  are  degenerated  into  savage  ferocity. 
If  any  of  my  friends  in  either  house  of  legislature  shall  condescend  to  listen 
to  and  improve  these  hints,  I  shall  think  that  I  have  not  lived  in  vain. 

WILLIAM  DRAPER. 

Sir  William,  in  return,  if  he  ever  had  any  personal  enmity  against  Ju- 
nius, appears  to  have  relinquished  it  completely  a  short  time  after  the 
contest,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  following  anecdote  given  by  Mr.  Camp- 
bell in  his  life  of  Hugh  Boyd,  p.  185. 

"Some  months  after  the  Letters  of  Junius  were  published  collectively, 
Boyd  met  Sir  William  Draper  at  the  tennis  court,  where  their  acquain- 
tance was  originally  formed  in  the  year  1769,  and  where  (being  both  great 
tennis  players)  they  used  often  to  meet;  the  conversation  turning-  upon 
Junius,  Sir  William  observed,  "That  though  Junius  had  treated  him 
with  extreme  severity,  he  now  looked  upon  him  as  a  very  honest  fellow; 
that  he  freely  forgave  him  for  the  bitterness  of  his  censures,  and  that 
there  was  no  man  with  whom  he  would  more  gladly  drink  a  bottle  of  old 
Burgundy."  Edit. 

It  has  been  said,  and  I  believe  truly,  that  it  was  signified  to  Sir  William 
Draper,  as  the  request  of  Lord  Granby,  that  he  should  desist  from  wri- 
ting in  his  Lordship's  defence.  Sir  William  Draper  certainly  drew  Junius 
Vol.  I.  I  forward 


66  LETTERS  OF 

provision,  which  in  their  own  nature,  and  in  all  military  and 
parliamentary  views,  are  incompatible;  but  I  call  upon  you 
to  justify  that  declaration,  wherein  you  charge  your  Sove- 
reign with  having  done  an  act  in  your  favour,  notoriously 

forward  to  say  more  of  Lord  Granby's  character,  than  he  originally  in- 
tended. He  was  reduced  to  the  dilemma  of  either  being  totally  silenced, 
or  of  supporting  his  first  letter.  Whether  Sir  William  hud  a  right  to  reduce 
him  to  this  dilemma,  or  to  call  upon  him  for  his  name,  after  a  voluntary 
attacit  on  his  side,  are  questions  submitted  to  the  candor  of  the  public. — 
The  death  of  Lord  Granby  was  lamented  by  Junius.  He  undoubtedly 
owed  some  compensations  to  the  public,  and  seemed  determined  to  acquit 
himself  of  them.  In  private  life,  he  was  unquestionably  that  good  man,  who, 
for  the  interest  of  his  country,  ought  to  have  been  a  great  one.  Bonuin 
virum  facile  dixeris; — magnum  libenter.  I  speak  of  him  now  without  par- 
tiality;— I  never  spoke  of  him  with  resentment.  His  mistakes,  in  public 
conduct,  did  not  arise  either  from  want  of  sentiment,  or  want  of  judg- 
ment, but  in  general  from  the  difficulty  of  saying  No  to  the  bad  people 
who  surrounded  him. 

As  for  the  rest,  the  friends  of  Lord  Granby  should  remember,  that  he 
himself  thought  proper  to  condemn,  retract,  and  disavow,  by  a  most  so- 
lemn declaration  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  very  system  of  political 
conduct,  which  Junius  had  held  forth  to  the  disapprobation  of  the  public. 
— Author. 

This  took  place  January  the  30th,  1770,  in  a  committee  on  the  state  of 
the  nation,  in  which  the  affair  of  the  Middlesex  election  was  particularly 
discussed;  and  on  which  occasion  the  Marquis  of  Granby  delivered  him- 
self as  follows: — 

"  I  am  sorry  I  am  obliged  to  declare  myself  against  the  motion;  but  I 
cannot  see  what  right  this  House  can  have  to  receive  any  person  into  it  as 
a  member  except  by  the  full  choice  of  his  constituents.  It  was  for  want  of 
considering  the  nice  distinction  between  expulsion  and  incapacitation  that 
I  gave  my  vote  for  the  sitting  of  a  member  who  was  not  returned  in  the 
last  session  of  this  parliament.  That  vote  I  shall  always  lament  as  the 
greatest  misfortune  of  my  life.  I  now  see  the  Middlesex  election  in  another 
light:  I  now  see  that  though  this  House  has  an  unquestionable  and  long 
established  right  to  expel,  yet  that  a  right  to  incapacitate  is  lodged  only  in 
the  legislature  collectively.  I  see  that  1  was  in  an  error,  and  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  make  this  public  declaration  of  it,  and  give  my  vote  for  the 
amendment." 

The  belief  of  Junius,  "that  it  was  signified  to  Sir  W.  D.  as  the  request 
of  Lord  G.  that  he  should  desist  from  writing  in  his  Lordship's  defence," 
is  farther  confirmed  by  the  following  notice  appended  to  a  letter  on 
the  subject  of  this  controversy,  signed  Aurelius,  inserted  in  the  Public 
Advertiser,  March  II,  1769.  "We  must  now  beg  leave  to  drop  this 
dispute,  as  the  printer  has  received  a  hint  that  its  continuance  will  be  dis- 
agreeable." 

Sir 


JUNIUS.  67 

against  law.  The  half-pay,  both  in  Ireland  and  England,  is 
appropriated  by  parliament;  and  if  it  be  given  to  persons 
who,  like  you,  are  legally  incapable  of  holding  it,  it  is  a 
breach  of  law.  It  would  have  been  more  decent  in  you  to 

Sir  W.  Draper,  as  far  as  Lord  Granby  was  implicated,  dropped  the 
subject;  though  he  subsequently  wrote  the  following  letter  in  defence  of 
his  own  conduct,  in  which  he  again  calls  upon  Junius  to  avow  himself. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  Clifton,  April  24th,  1769. 

A  Gentleman  who  signed  himself  An  Half-pay  Subaltern,  has  called 
upon  me  to  stand  forth  in  the  behalf  of  the  much  distressed  officers  now 
upon  half-pay.'  He  was  pleased  to  say,  that  I  have  an  effectual  method  of 
being  really  servic  able  to  the  officers  of  my  reduced  regiment.  1  should 
have  been  happy  in  receiving,  by  a  private  letter,  that  gentleman's  idea  of 
relief  for  them;  could  have  wished  he  had  made  use  of  a  more  agreeable 
mode  of  application  than  a  public  newspaper;  as  unluckily  these  ill  season- 
ed provocatives  are  more  apt  to  disgust  than  quicken  ihe  desire  of  doing 
good,  especially  when  they  are  accompanied  by  invidious  reflections,  both 
rash  and  ill  founded:  at  present  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  to  find  out  by  what 
means  a  person  out  of  parliament,  who  has  long  retired  from  the  great 
world,  and  who  of  course  has  but  very  little  influence  or  interest,  can  be  of 
much  use  to  those  gallant  and  distressed  gentlemen;  to  many  of  whom  I 
have  the  greatest  obligations;  of  which  I  have  upon  all  occasions,  made 
the  most  public  and  grateful  acknowledgments;  nor  was  there  the  smallest 
necessity  to  wake  me  in  this  loud  manner  to  a  remembrance  of  their  im- 
portant services,  although  the  writer  has  been  pleased  to  charge  me  with 
forgetfulness;  a  most  heavy  imputation!  as  it  implies  ingratitude  towards 
those  by  whom  1  have  been  so  essentially  assisted,  and  to  whom  I  am  so 
much  indebted  for  my  good  fortune;  which  however  is  not  so  great  as  the 
gentleman  imagines:  he  himself  forgets  that  the  Spaniards  have  alsoybr- 
got  to  pay  the  ransom.  If  he  could  quicken  their  memory,  instead  of  mine, 
the  officers  would  be  more  obliged  to  him. 

Their  bravery  has  given  me  a  competency,  &  golden  mediocrity,  but  not 
much  affluence  or  luxury,  which  is  a  stranger  to  my  house  as  well  as  to 
my  thoughts;  and  I  here  most  solemnly  declare  (notwithstanding  the  false 
assertions  of  a  Junius,  who  has  told  the  world  that  I  had  sold  the  partners 
of  my  victory,  and  then  gravely  asked  me  if  I  were  not  guilty  of  perjury) 
that  my  income  is  now  less  than  when  I  first  went  to  Manilla.  It  is  true, 
that  its  being  so  is  by  my  own  choice:  I  am  voluntarily  upon  an  equivalent 
for  half-pay;  and  although  I  would  most  willingly  stand  forth  in  the  ser- 
vice of  my  king  and  country,  should  the  necessity  of  the  times  demand  my 
poor  assistance,  yet  I  would  not  again  accept  of  any  regiment  whatsoever, 
or  interfere  with  the  pretensions  of  those  officers,  whose  good  fortune  has 
been  less  than  their  merits;  and  I  here  most  solemnly  declare,  that  I  never 
received  either  from  the  East  India  Company,  or  from  the  Spaniards, 

directly 


68  LETTERS  Ol 

have  called  this  dishonourable  transaction  by  its  true  name; 
a  job  to  accommodate  two  persons,  by  particular  interest  and 
management  at  the  castle.  What  sense  must  government 
have  had  of  your  services,  when  the  rewards  they  have  given 
you  are  only  a  disgrace  to  you! 

And  now,  Sir  William,  I  shall  take  my  leave  of  you  for 
ever.  Motives  very  different  from  any  apprehension  of  your 
resentment,  make  it  impossible  you  should  ever  know  me. 
In  truth,  you  have  some  reason  to  hold  yourself  indebted  to 
me.  From  the  lessons  I  have  given  you,  you  may  collect 
a  profitable  instruction  for  your  future  life.  They  will  either 
teach  you  so  to  regulate  your  conduct,  as  to  be  able  to  set  the 
most  malicious  inquiries  at  defiance;  or,  if  that  be  a  lost 
hope,  thev  will  teach  you  prudence  enough  not  to  attract  the 
public  attention  to  a  character,  which  will  only  pass  without 
censure,  when  it  passes  without  observation. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  VIII. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 
My  Lord,  18  March,  1769. 

Before  you  were  placed  at  the  head  of  affairs,  it  had 
been  a  maxim  of  the  English  government,  not  unwillingly 

directlv  or  indirectly,  any  present  or  gratification,  or  any  circumstance  of 
emolument  whatsoever  to  the  amount  of  five  shillings,  during-  the  whole 
course  of  the  expedition,  or  afterwards,  my  legal  prize-money  excepted. 
The  Spaniards  know  that  1  refused  the  sum  of  fifty  thousand  pounds  offered 
rue  by  the  archbishop,  to  mitigate  the  terms  of  the  ransom,  and  to  reduce 
it  to  half  a  million,  instead  of  a  -whole  one:  so  that  had  1  been  disposed  to 
have  basely  sold  the  partners  of  my  victory,  avarice  herself  could  not  have 
•wished  for  a  richer  opportunity. 

The  many  base  insinuations,  that  have  been  of  late  thrown  out  to  my 
disadvantage  in  the  public  papers,  oblige  me  to  have  recourse  to  the  same 
channel  for  my  vindication;  and  flatter  myself  that  die  public  will  be  can- 
did enough  not  to  impute  it  to  arrogance,  vanity,  or  the  impertinence  of 
egotism;  and  hope  that  as  much  credit  will  be  given  to  the  assertions  of  a 
man,  who  is  ready  to  seal  his  testimony  with  his  blood,  as  to  a  writer,  who 
when  repeatedly  catted  upon  to  avow  himself,  and  personally  maintain  his 
accusation,  still  skulks  in  the  dark,  or  in  the  mean  subterfuge  of  a  mask. 

W.  D. 


JUNIUS.  69 

admitted  by  the  people,  that  every  ungracious  or  severe  ex- 
ertion of  the  prerogative  should  be  placed  to  the  account  of 
the  Minister;  but  that  whenever  an  act  of  grace  or  benevo- 
lence was  to  be  performed,  the  whole  merit  of  it  should  be 
attributed  to  the  Sovereign  himself*.  It  was  a  wise  doctrine, 
my  Lord,  and  equally  advantageous  to  the  King  and  to  his 
subjects;  for  while  it  preserved  that  suspicious  attention, 
with  which  the  people  ought  always  to  examine  the  conduct 
of  ministers,  it  tended  at  the  same  time  rather  to  increase 
than  to  diminish  their  attachment  to  the  person  of  their 
Sovereign.  If  there  be  not  a  fatality  attending  every  measure 
you  are  concerned  in,  by  what  treachery,  or  by  what  excess 
of  folly  has  it  happened,  that  those  ungracious  acts,  which 
have  distinguished  your  administration,  and  which  I  doubt 
not  were  entirely  your  own,  should  carry  with  them  a  strong- 
appearance  of  personal  interest,  and  even  of  personal  enmity 
in  a  quarter,  where  no  such  interest  or  enmity  can  be  sup- 
posed to  exist,  without  the  highest  injustice  and  the  highest 
dishonour?  On  the  other  hand,  by  what  judicious  manage- 
ment have  you  contrived  it,  that  the  only  act  of  mercy,  to 
which  you  ever  advised  your  Sovereign,  far  from  adding  to 
the  lustre  of  a  character,  truly  gracious  and  benevolent, 
should  be  received  with  universal  disapprobation  and  dis- 
gust? I  shall  consider  it  as  a  ministerial  measure,  because  it 
is  an  odious  one,  and  as  your  measure,  my  Lord  Duke,  be- 
cause you  are  the  minister. 

As  long  as  the  trial  of  this  chairman  was  depending!,  it 

*  Les  rois  ne  se  sont  reserve  que  les  graces.  lis  renvoient  les  condem- 
nations vers  leurs  officiers.   Montesquieu. 

f  The  contest  for  the  Middlesex  election,  in  which  Wilkes,  though  an 
outlaw,  was  four  times  returned  through  the  favour  of  the  populace,  was 
conducted  on  both  sides  with  the  utmost  violence  and  outrage.  The  court 
as  well  as  the  popular  party  had  its  committees  and  its  hired  mobs.  Edward 
M'Quirk  was  one  of  the  persons  employed  in  the  latter  capacity,  and  how 
resolutely  he  fulfilled  his  office  in  heading  one  of  the  court  mobs  may  be 
collected  from  his  having  been  chiefly  concerned  in  a  fray,  in  which  a  man 
of  the  name  of  Clarke,  belonging  to  the  opposite  mob,  was  killed.  M'Quirk 
was  committed  to  prison,  and,  on  his  trial  the  jury  found  him  guilty  of 
murder,  and  he  was  of  course  condemned  to  be  executed.  By  the  advice 
of  the  minister,  however,  his  majesty  interposed  with  his  royal  grace,  and 
M'Quirk  was  pardoned.  Edit. 


70  LETTERS  OF 

was  natural  enough  that  government  should  give  him  every 
possible  encouragement  and  support.  The  honourable  ser- 
vice for  which  he  was  hired,  and  the  spirit  with  which  he 
performed  it,  made  common  cause  between  your  Grace  and 
him.  The  minister,  who  by  secret  corruption  invades  the 
freedom  of  elections,  and  the  ruffian,  who  by  open  violence 
destroys  that  freedom,  are  embarked  in  the  same  bottom. 
They  have  the  same  interests,  and  mutually  feel  for  each 
other.  To  do  justice  to  your  Grace's  humanity,  you  felt  for 
Mac  Quirk  as  you  ought  to  do,  and  if  you  had  been  con- 
tented to  assist  him  indirectly,  without  a  notorious  denial  of 
justice,  or  openly  insulting  the  sense  of  the  nation,  you 
might  have  satisfied  every  duty  of  political  friendship,  with- 
out committing  the  honour  of  your  Sovereign,  or  hazarding 
the  reputation  of  his  government.  But  when  this  unhappy 
man  had  been  solemnly  tried,  convicted  and  condemned;— 
when  it  appeared  that  he  had  been  frequently  employed  in 
the  same  services,  and  that  no  excuse  for  him  could  be  drawn 
either  from  the  innocence  of  his  former  life,  or  the  simplicity 
of  his  character,  was  it  not  hazarding  too  much  to  interpose 
the  strength  of  the  prerogative  between  this  felon  and  the 
justice  of  his  country*?  You  ought  to  have  known  that  an 

*  Whitehall,  March  11,  1769.  His  Majesty  has  been  graciously  pleased 
to  extend  his  royal  mercy  to  Edward  M'Qihrk,  found  guilty  of  the  murder 
of  George  Clarke,  as  appears  by  his  royal  warrant  to  the  tenor  following. 

GEORGE  R. 
Whereas  a  doubt  had  arisen  in  Our  Royal  breast  concerning  the  evi- 
dence of  the  death  of  George  Clarke,  from  the  representations  of  William 
Bloomfield.Esq.  surgeon,  and  Solomon  Starling,  apothecary;  both  of  whom, 
as  has  been  represented  to  Us,  attended  the  deceased  before  his  death, 
and  expressed  their  opinions  that  he  did  not  die  of  the  blow  he  received  at 
Brentford:  And  whereas  it  appears  to  Us,  that  neither  of  the  said  persons 
were  produced  as  witnesses  upon  the  trial,  though  the  said  Solomon  Star- 
ling had  been  examined  before  the  coroner,  and  the  only  person  called  to 
prove  that  the  death  of  the  said  George  Clarke  was  occasioned  by  the  said 
blow,  was  John  Foot,  surgeon,  who  never  saw  the  deceased  till  after  his 
death;  We  thought  fit  thereupon  to  refer  the  said  representations,  to- 
gether with  the  report  of  the  Recorder  of  Our  city  of  London,  of  the  evi- 
dence given  bv  Richard  and  William  Beale,  and  the  said  John  Foot,  on 
the  trial  of  Edward  Quirk,  otherwise  called  Edward  Kirk,  otherwise  call- 
ed Edward  M'Quirk,  for  the  murder  of  the  said  Clarke,  to  the  master, 

wardens, 


JUNIUS.  71 

example  of  this  sort  was  never  so  necessary  as  at  present; 
and  certainly  you  must  have  known  that  the  lot  could  not 
have  fallen  upon  c.  more  guilty  object.  What  system  of  go- 
vernment is  this?  You  are  perpetually  complaining  of  the 
riotous  disposition  of  the  lower  class  of  people,  yet  when  the 
laws  have  given  you  the  means  of  making  an  example,  in 
every  sense  unexceptionable,  and  by  far  the  most  likely  to 
awe  the  multitude,  you  pardon  the  offence,  and  are  not 
ashamed  to  give  the  sanction  of  government  to  the  riots  you 
complain  of,  and  even  to  future  murders.  You  are  partial 
perhaps  to  the  military  mode  of  execution,  and  had  rather 
see  a  score  of  these  wretches  butchered  by  the  guards,  than 
one  of  them  suffer  death  by  regular  course  of  law*.  How 
does  it  happen,  my  Lord,  that,  in  your  hands,  even  the  mercy 
of  the  prerogative  is  cruelty  and  oppression  to  the  subject? 

wardens,  and  the  rest  of  the  court  of  examiners  of  the  Surgeons  company, 
commanding  them  likewise  to  take  such  further  examination  of  the  said 
persons  so  representing,  and  of  said  John  Foot,  as  they  might  think  neces- 
sary, together  with  the  premises  above  mentioned,  to  form  and  report  to 
Us  their  opinion,  "  Whether  it  did  or  did  not  appear  to  them,  that  the  said 
George  Clarke  died  in  consequence  of  the  blow  he  received  in  the  riot  at 
Brentford  on  the  8th  of  December  last."  And  the  said  court  of  examiners 
of  the  Surgeons  company  having  thereupon  reported  to  Us  their  opinio^,, 
"  That  it  did  not  appear  to  them  that  he  did;"  We  have  thought  proper  to 
extend  Our  royal  mercy  to  him  the  said  Edward  Quirk,  otherwise  Edward 
Kirk,  otherwise  called  Edward  M'Quirk,  and  to  grant  him  Our  free  par- 
don for  the  murder  of  the  said  George  Clarke,  of  which  he  has  been  found 
guilty:  Our  will  and  pleasure  therefore  is,  That  he  the  said  Edward  Quirk, 
otherwise  called  Edward  Kirk,  otherwise  called  Edward  M'Quirk,  be  in- 
serted, for  the  said  murder,  in  our  first  and  next  general  pardon  that  shall 
come  out  for  the  poor  convicts  of  Newgate,  without  any  condition  whatso- 
ever; and  that  in  the  mean  time  you  take  bail  for  his  appearance,  in  order 
j  to  plead  Our  said  pardon.  And  for  so  doing  this  shall  be  your  warrant. 

!       Given  at  Our  court  at  St.  James's  the  10th  day  of  March,  1T69,  in  the 
ninth  year  of  Our  reign. 
By  his  Majesty's  command, 

ROCHFORD. 
j  To  Our  trusty  and  well  beloved  James  Eyre, 
Esq.  Recorder  of  Our  city  of  London,  the 
Sheriffs  of  Our  said  city  and  county  of  Mid- 
dlesex, and  all  others  whom  it  may  concern. 

*  See  this  subject  farther  touched  upon  in  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No. 
I  xxiv.    Edit. 


72  LETTERS  OF 

The  measure  it  seems  was  so  extraordinary,  that  you 
thought  it  necessary  to  give  some  reasons  for  it  to  the  pub- 
lic.  Let  them  be  fairly  examined. 

1.  You  say  that  Alessrs.  Bromfield  and  Starling  were  not 
examined  at  Mac  Shark's  trial.  I  will  tell  your  Grace  why 
they  were  not.  They  must  have  been  examined  upon  oath; 
and  it  was  foreseen,  that  their  evidence  would  either  not 
benefit,  or  might  be  prejudicial  to  the  prisoner.  Otherwise, 
is  it  conceivable  that  his  counsel  should  neglect  to  call  in 
such  material  evidence? 

You  say  that  Mr.  Foot  did  not  see  the  deceased  until  after 
his  death.  A  surgeon,  my  Lord,  must  know  very  little  of  his 
profession,  if,  upon  examining  a  wound,  or  a  contusion,  he 
cannot  determine  whether  it  was  mortal  or  not. — While  the 
party  is  alive,  a  surgeon  will  be  cautious  of  pronouncing; 
whereas,  by  the  death  of  the  patient,  he  is  enabled  to  consi- 
der both  cause  and  effect  in  one  view,  and  to  speak  with  a 
certainty  confirmed  by  experience. 

Yet  we  are  to  thank  your  Grace  for  the  establishment  of 
a  new  tribunal.  Your  inquisitio  post  mortem  is  unknown  to 
the  laws  of  England,  and  does  honour  to  your  invention*. 
The  only  material  objection  to  it  is,  that  if  Mr.  Foot's  evi- 
dence was  insufficient,  because  he  did  not  examine  the  wound 
till  after  the  death  of  the  party,  much  less  can  a  negative 
opinion,  given  by  gentlemen  who  never  saw  the  body  of  Mr. 

*  This  sentence  in  a  note  to  one  of  the  editions  of  the  Letters  of  Junius 
is  said  to  have  no  correct  meaning'.  "Junius,"  says  the  commentator, 
"  thought  that  he  had  hit  upon  a  forcible  and  quaintly  allusive  expression, 
hastily  used  it,  and  blundered  into  nonsense  in  the  use."  The  reader  how- 
ever shall  now  determine  whether  it  is  the  author  or  the  commentator  who 
has  blundered  into  nonsense. 

The  expression  is,  in  fact,  perfectly  correct,  though  liable  to  be  misun- 
derstood without  some  attention.  Every  coroner's  inquest,  indeed,  except 
in  the  cases  of  ship-wreck  and  treasure-trove,  is,  when  exercised  judicial- 
ly, an  inquisitio  post  morte?n;  but  it  can  only  legally  take  place  super  visum 
corporis,  "on  the  sight  of  the  corpse  or  dead  bpdy;"  on  the  spot  where  the 
death  was  produced;  and  by  a  jury  summoned  from  the  neighbourhood.  In 
the  instance  before  us  none  of  these  constitutional  requisites,  were  attend- 
ed to;  and  Junius  might  hence  remark  with  the  strictest  accuracy,  as 
well  as  the  keenest  irony,  Tour  inquisitio  post  mortem  is  unknown  to  the 
laws  of  England.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  73 

Clarke,  either  before  or  after  his  decease,  authorize  you  to 
supersede  the  verdict  of  a  jury,  and  the  sentence  of  the  law. 

Now,  my  Lord,  let  me  ask  you,  Has  it  never  occurred  to 
your  Grace,  while  you  were  withdrawing  this  desperate 
wretch  from  that  justice  which  the  laws  had  awarded,  and 
which  the  whole  people  of  England  demanded  against  him, 
that  there  is  another  man,  who  is  the  favourite  of  his  coun- 
try, whose  pardon  would  have  been  accepted  with  gratitude, 
whose  pardon  would  have  healed  all  our  divisions*?  Have 
you  quite  forgotten  that  this  man  was  once  your  Grace's 
friend?  Or  is  it  to  murderers  only  that  you  will  extend  the 
mercy  of  the  crown? 

These  are  questions  you  will  not  answer,  nor  is  it  neces- 
sary. The  character  of  your  private  life,  and  the  uniform 
tenour  of  your  public  conduct,  is  an  answer  to  them  all. 

JUNIUS. 

*  John  Wilkes,  formerly,  and  before  the  duke  of  Grafton  had  abandoned 
the  party  of  Lord  Chatham,  and  had  formed  a  party  for  himself,  was  one 
of  his  Grace's  most  confidential  friends.  He  was  at  this  time  confined  in 
the  King's  Bench  prison,  having  surrendered  himself  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  court  of  this  name,  by  which  the  sentence  of  outlawry  had  been 
pronounced  against  him.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  ministerial  perse- 
cution of  Wilkes,  was  the  zeal  with  which  he  had  opposed  the  existing 
cabinet,  and  especially  the  odium  and  disgrace  in  which  the  ministry  had 
involved  themselves  by  issuing  a  general  warrant  to  seize  all  the  papers 
and  persons  of  whomsoever  they  suspected  to  be  concerned  in  writing  the 
forty -fifth  number  of  the  famous  political  and  periodical  paper  called  the 
North  Briton,  a  joint  publication  of  John  Wilkes,  Charles  Churchill,  and 
Lord  Temple.  The  question  of  general  warrants  was  hereby  necessarily 
brought  before  the  public.  The  popular  resentment  was  roused  against 
the  abettors  of  such  a  measure  to  the  highest  point  of  irascibility;  and 
Wilkes,  upon  the  next  general  election  that  ensued,  was  chosen  member 
of  parliament  for  the  county  of  Middlesex,  notwithstanding  his  outlawry, 
as  a  proof  of  the  utter  contempt  in  which  the  ministry  were  at  this  time 
held  by  the  nation,  rather  than  out  of  any  personal  regard  for  Wilkes  him- 
self, whose  own  misconduct  must  otherwise  have  been  the  ruin  of  him.'— 
Edit. 


Vol.  I.  K 


LETTERS  OF 


LETTER  IX. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 
My  Lord,  10  April,  1769. 

I  have  so  good  an  opinion  of  your  Grace's  discernment, 
that  when  the  author  of  the  vindication  of  your  conduct  as- 
sures us,  that  he  writes  from  his  own  mere  motion,  without 
the  least  authority  from  your  Grace*,  I  should  be  ready 
enough  to  believe  him,  but  for  one  fatal  mark,  which  seems 
to  be  fixed  upon  every  measure,  in  which  either  your  per- 
sonal or  your  political  character  is  concerned. — Your  first 
attempt  to  support  Sir  William  Proctor  ended  in  the  election 
of  Mr.  Wilkes;  the  second  ensured  success  to  Mr.  Glynn. 
The  extraordinary  step  you  took  to  make  Sir  James  Lowther 
lord  paramount  of  Cumberland,  has  ruined  his  interest  in 
that  county  for  rvert.  The  House  List  of  Directors  was 
cursed  with  the  concurrence  of  government^;  and  even  the 
miserable  Dingley  could  not  escape  the  misfortune  of  your 
Grace's  protection^.  With  this  uniform  experience  before 
us,  we  are  authorized  to  suspect,  that  when  a  pretended  vin- 
dication of  your  principles  and  conduct  in  reality  contains 
the  bitterest  reflections  upon  both,  it  could  not  have  been 
written  without  your  immediate  direction  and  assistance. 
The  author  indeed  calls  God  to  witness  for  him,  with  all  the 

*  He  alludes  to  a  pamphlet  containing  a  long  and  laboured  vindication 
of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  attributed  to  the  pen  of  Mr.  Edward  Weston, 
writer  of  the  Gazette.  Edit. 

f  See  note  upon  the  Nullum  Tempus  bill,  Junius  No.  lvii.  in  which 
the  contest  between  Sir  James  Lowther  and  the  Duke  of  Portland  is  de- 
tailed at  large.  Edit. 

t  At  this  period  the  whole  four  and  twenty  directors  were  annually  cho- 
sen, and  ten  gentlemen,  whose  names  were  not  inserted  in  the  house  list, 
were  elected,  notwithstanding  the  influence  of  government  was  exerted 
in  its  support.  Edit. 

§This  unfortunate  person  had  been  persuaded  by  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
to  set  up  for  Middlesex,  his  Grace  being  determined  to  seat  him  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  if  he  had  but  a  single  vote.  It  happened  unluckily,  that 
he  could  not  prevail  upon  any  one  freeholder  to  put  him  in  nomination,  and 
it  was  with  difficulty  he  escaped  out  of  the  hands  of  the  populace. 


JUNIUS.  75 

sincerity,  and  in  the  very  terms  of  an  Irish  evidence,  to  the 
best  of  his  knowledge  and  belief.  My  Lord,  you  should  not 
encourage  these  appeals  to  heaven.  The  pious  Prince,  from 
whom  you  are  supposed  to  descend,  made  such  frequent  use 
of  them  in  his  public  declarations,  that  at  last  the  people  also 
found  it  necessary  to  appeal  to  heaven  in  their  turn.  Your 
administration  has  driven  us  into  circumstances  of  equal 
distress; — beware  at  least  how  you  remind  us  of  the  remedy. 

You  have  already  much  to  answer  for.  You  have  provok- 
ed this  unhappv  gentleman  to  play  the  fool  once  more  in 
public  life,  in  spite  of  his  years  and  infirmities,  and  to  shew 
us,  that,  as  you  yourself  are  a  singular  instance  of  youth 
without  spirit,  the  man  who  defends  you  is  a  no  less  remark- 
able example  of  age  without  the  benefit  of  experience.  To 
follow  such  a  writer  minutely  would,  like  his  own  periods, 
be  a  labour  without  end.  The  subject  too  has  been  already- 
discussed,  and  is  sufficiently  understood.  I  cannot  help  ob- 
serving, however,  that,  when  the  pardon  of  Mac  Quirk  was 
the  principal  charge  against  you,  it  would  have  been  but  a 
decent  compliment  to  your  Grace's  understanding,  to  have 
defended  you  upon  your  own  principles.  What  credit  does 
a  man  deserve,  who  tells  us  plainly,  that  the  facts  set  forth 
in  the  King's  proclamation  were  not  the  true  motives  on 
which  the  pardon  was  granted,  and  that  he  wishes  that  those 
chirurgical  reports,  which  first  gave  occasion  to  certain 
doubts  in  the  royal  breast,  had  not  been  laid  before  his  Ma- 
jesty. You  see,  my  Lord,  that  even  your  friends  cannot  de- 
fend your  actions,  without  changing  your  principles,  nor  jus- 
tify a  deliberate  measure  of  government,  without  contra- 
dicting the  main  assertion  on  which  it  was  founded. 

The  conviction  of  Mac  Quirk  had  reduced  you  to  a  di- 
lemma, in  which  it  was  hardly  possible  for  you  to  reconcile 
your  political  interest  with  your  duty.  You  were  obliged 
either  to  abandon  an  active  useful  partisan,  or  to  protect  a 
felon  from  public  justice.  With  your  usual  spirit,  you  prefer- 
red your  interest  to  every  other  consideration;  and  with  your 
usual  judgment,  you  founded  your  determination  upon  the 
only  motives,  which  should  not  have  been  given  to  the  public. 


76  LETTERS  OF 

I  have  frequently  censured  Mr.  Wilkes's  conduct,  yet 
your  advocate  reproaches  me  with  having  devoted  myself  to 
the  service  of  sedition.  Your  Grace  can  best  inform  us,  for 
which  of  Mr.  Wilkes's  good  qualities  you  first  honoured  him 
with  your  friendship,  or  how  long  it  was  before  you  discov- 
ered those  bad  ones  in  him,  at  which,  it  seems,  your  delicacy 
was  offended.  Remember,  my  Lord,  that  you  continued 
your  connexion  with  Mr.  Wilkes  long  after  he  had  been 
convicted  of  those  crimes,  which  you  have  since  taken  pains 
to  represent  in  the  blackest  colours  of  blasphemy  and  treason. 
How  unlucky  is  it,  that  the  first  instance  you  have  given  us 
of  a  scrupulous  regard  to  decorum  is  united  with  the  breach 
of  a  moral  obligation!  For  my  own  part,  my  Lord,  I  am 
proud  to  affirm,  that,  if  I  had  been  weak  enough  to  form  such 
a  friendship,  I  would  never  have  been  base  enough  to  betray 
it.  But,  let  Mr.  Wilkes's  character  be  what  it  may,  this  at 
least  is  certain,  that,  circumstanced  as  he  is  with  regard  to 
the  public,  even  his  vices  plead  lor  him.  The  people  of  Eng- 
land have  too  much  discernment  to  suffer  your  Grace  to 
take  advantage  of  the  failings  of  a  private  character,  to  esta- 
blish a  precedent  by  which  the  public  liberty  is  affected,  and 
which  you  may  hereafter,  with  equal  ease  and  satisfaction, 
employ  to  the  ruin  of  the  best  men  in  the  kingdom.— —Con- 
tent yourself,  my  Lord,  with  the  many  advantages,  which 
the  unsullied  purity  of  your  own  character  has  given  you 
over  your  unhappy  deserted  friend.  Avail  yourself  of  all  the 
unforgiving  piety  of  the  court  you  live  in,  and  bless  God 
that  you  "are  not  as  other  men  are;  extortioners,  unjust, 
adulterers,  or  even  as  this  publican."  In  a  heart  void  of  feel- 
ing, the  laws  of  honour  and  good  faith  may  be  violated  with 
impunity,  and  there  you  may  safely  indulge  your  genius. 
But  the  laws  of  England  shall  not  be  violated,  even  by  your 
hch  zeal  to  oppress  a  sinner;  and  though  you  have  succeed- 
ed in  making  him  the  tool,  you  shall  not  make  him  the  vic- 
tim of  your  ambition. 

JUNIUS. 


JUNIUS.  77 


LETTER  X. 

TO  MR.  EDWARD  WESTON. 

Sir,  21  April,  1769. 

I  said  you  were  an  old  man  without  the  benefit  of  expe- 
rience. It  seems  you  are  also  a  volunteer  with  the  stipend  of 
twenty  commissions*;  and  at  a  period  when  all  prospects 

*  Under  the  presumption  that  the  pamphlet  alluded  to  in  the  preceding 
letter,  entitled  a  "  Vindication  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,"  was  written  by 
Mr.  Weston,  and  which  was  avowedly  defended  by  the  author,  whoever 
he  was,  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  under  the  signature  of  a  "Volunteer  in 
the  Government's  Service,"  the  following  short  letter,  addressed  to  that 
gentleman,  obviously  from  the  penof  Junius,  appeared  in  the  same  paper 

TO  THE  RIGHT  HON.  EDWARD  WESTON. 
Sir,  April  20,  1769. 

Your  age,  though  oppressed  with  bodily  and  mental  infirmities,  which, 
for  the  world's  edification,  you  have  published  to  it,  demands  some  respect, 
or  the  cause  you  have  embarked  in,  would  entitle  you  to  none.  The  last 
glimmerings  of  your  expiring  taper,  however,  do  your  hero  no  honour;  and 
I  fear  the  principle  that  has  kindled  it  obtains  you  no  credit.  You  are 
a  privy  counsellor  in  Ireland,  writer  of  the  Gazette,  comptroller  of  the 
salt-office,  a  clerk  of  the  signet,  and  a  pensioner  on  the  Irish  establish- 
ment: such  is  the  Volunteer!  And  you  may  remember  when  you  were  un- 
der secretary  of  state,  the  division  of  500/.  among  the  people  left  to  your 
discretion,  of  which  you  modestly  claimed  400/.  for  yourself.  So  honest,  so 
upright,  and  so  disinterested  is  the  man!  Let  Junius  be  the  dirty  rascal 

j    you  call  him,  I  know,  you  know,  and  the  world  knows,  -what  you  are 

Crito. 

This  letter  produced  a  short  reply  from  the  Volunteer,  in  which  he  de- 
nies that  Mr.  Weston  is  the  author  of  the  pamphlet,  or  of  the  letters  under 
j    that  signature;  and  one  from  Poetikastos,  who  attacks  Junius  in  the  fol- 
lowing words:  . 

"  You  conclude  your  despicable  vindication  of  an  honour  which  vou  do 
1   not  possess,  by  asserting  '  that  you  are  a  master  in  the  art  of  representing 
the  treachery  of  the  minister,  and  the  abused  simplicity  of  a  —        ■'  Vil- 
li lain!  of  whom?  You,  who  write  under  the  name  of  Junius,  are  a  base 
i!   scoundrel.  You  lie;  and  you  may  find  out  who  gives  you  the  lie." 
These  letters  occasioned  the  under  written  answer: — 

TO  THE  RIGHT  HON.  EDWARD  WESTON. 

April  27,  1769. 
The  old  fox  has  been  unkennelled,  but  is  ashamed  of  his  stinking  tail. 
I    Either  several  people  of  intelligence  and  consideration  have  been  grossly 

deceived, 


78  LETTERS  OF 

are  at  an  end,  you  are  still  looking  forward  to  rewards,  which 
you  cannot  enjoy.  No  man  is  better  acquainted  with  the 
bounty  of  government  than  you  are. 

ton  impudence, 

Temeraire  vieillard,  aura  sa  recompense. 

But  I  will  not  descend  to  an  altercation  either  with  the 
impotence  of  your  age,  or  the  peevishness  of  your  diseases. 
Your  pamphlet*,  ingenious  as  it  is,  has  been  so  little  read, 
that  the  public  cannot  know  how  far  you  have  aright  to  give 
me  the  lie,  without  the  following  citation  of  your  own  words. 

Page  6 — '  1.  That  he  is  persuaded  that  the  motives,  which 
he  (Mr.  Weston)  has  alledged,  must  appear  fully  sufficient, 
with  or  without  the  opinions  of  the  surgeons. 

*2.  That  those  very  motives  must  have  been  the  foun- 
dation, on  which  the  Earl  of  Rochford  thought  proper,  &c. 

*  3.  That  he  cannot  but  regret  that  the  Earl  of  Roch- 
ford seems  to  have  thought  proper  to  lay  the  chirurgical  re- 
deceived,  or  our  doughty  Volunteer  declares  upon  his  honour  an  untruth.  I 
cannot  believe  a  misinformation,  unless  the  world  should  have  thought  that 
no  impertinent,  expectant,  old  iellow,  could  have  been  found  to  dispatch  so 
lame  an  errand  but  you. 

You  seem  ashamed  of  your  generous  distribution:  I  applaud  your  mo- 
desty; but  it  shall  not  beat  the  expense  of  truth.  You  did  claim  400/.  out 
of  50'Jl.for  your  own  self;  and  there  are,  I  suppose,  at  least  half  a  dozen 
people  who  can  attest  it.  And  you  shall  find  that  I  dare  say  something  else 
to  your  mortification,  if  you  suppose  the  world  is  not  heartily  tired  of  you, 
your  petulance,  and  your  crudities. 

I  don't  believe  the  governors  of  Bedlam  indulge  their  patients  with 
news-papers,  or  I  should  have  supposed  that  Poetikastos  had  obtained  his 
genteel  residence  there.  The  poor  raving  creature  bawls  aloud  for  swords 
and  pistols,  and  requires  the  fast  argument  instead  of  the  best.  The  public 
has  pronounced  upon  his  reason  the  judgment  of  Felo  de  se,  from  his  own 
pen; — I  am  so  impressed  with  humanity  as  to  wish  the  coroner  may  not 
have  the  trouble  of  passing  the  same  sentence  upon  his  person  from  his 
sword.  I  should,  however,  pity  the  elegant  Junius,  who  well  deserves 
the  thanks  of  the  independent  public,  if  he  was  obliged  to  take  notice  of 
every  fool,  sycophant,  and  bully.  Crito.   Edit. 

*  It  is  possible  Junius,  though  his  information  was  generally  accurate, 
was  incorrect  in  attributing  this  pamphlet  to  Mr.  Weston.  For,  in  a  letter 
inserted  by  Mr.  Weston  in  the  Public  Advertiser  a  few  months  afterwards, 
October  14,  he  solemnly  denies  his  having  written  this  and  a  variety  of 
pamphlets  and  letters  attributed  to  him.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  79 

ports  before  the  King,  in  preference  to  all  the  other  sufficient 
motives,'  &c. 

Let  the  public  determine  whether  this  be  defending  go- 
vernment on  their  principles  or  your  own. 

The  style  and  language  you  have  adopted  are,  I  confess, 
not  ill  suited  to  the  elegance  of  your  own  manners,  or  to  the 
dignity  of  the  cause  you  have  undertaken.  Every  common 
dauber  writes  rascal  and  villain  under  his  pictures,  because 
the  pictures  themselves  have  neither  character  nor  resem- 
blance. But  the  works  of  a  master  require  no  index.  His 
features  and  colouring  are  taken  from  nature.  The  impres- 
sion they  make  is  immediate  and  uniform;  nor  is  it  possible 
to  mistake  his  characters,  whether  they  represent  the  treache- 
ry of  a  minister,  or  the  abused  simplicity  of  a  King. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XI. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  O?  GRAFTON. 
My  Lord,  24  April,  1769. 

The  system  you  seemed  to  have  adopted,  when  Lord 
Chatham  unexpectedly  left  you  at  the  head  of  affairs,  gave 
I  us  no  promise  of  that  uncommon  exertion  of  vigour,  which 
i  has  since  illustrated  your  character,  and  distinguished  your 
;  administration.   Far  from  discovering  a  spirit  bold  enough 
to  invade  the  first  rights  of  the  people,  and  the  first  princi- 
ples of  the  constitution,  you  were  scrupulous  of  exercising 
even  those  powers,  with  which  the  executive  branch  of  the 
legislature  is  legally  invested.  We  have  not  yet  forgotten 
how  long  Mr.  Wilkes  was  suffered  to  appear  at  large,  nor 
how  long  he  was  at  liberty  to  canvass  for  the  city*  and  coun- 

*  Prior  to  his  offering  himself  for  the  county  of  Middlesex,  Wilkes  had 
become  a  candidate  for  the  metropolis,  and  it  was  in  consequence  of  his 
failure  in  the  city,  that  he  pressed  forwards  to  the  county.  The  populace, 
in  both  cases,  were  so  numerously  and  so  violently  attached  to  him,  that 
many  serious  riots  were  the  consequence — and  so  outrageous  were  the} 
|  in  two  or  three  instances,  that  the  court  party  strenuously  asserted  that 
the  city  and  even  the  palace  itself  were  not  free  from  danger.  Of  these 

riots. 


80  LETTERS  OF 

ty,  with  all  the  terrors  of  an  outlawry  hanging  over  him*. 
Our  gracious  Sovereign  has  not  yet  forgotten  the  extraordi- 

riots,  the  most  serious  that  occurred,  were  on  the  meeting  of  parliament, 
when  the  populace  surrounded  the  King's  Bench  prison  from  an  expecta- 
tion of  seeing  Wilkes,  who  had  then  been  elected  member  for  Middle- 
sex, liberated,  in  order  to  take  his  seat  in  the  senate,  in  the  course  of 
which  several  persons  were  killed  by  the  firing  of  the  military;  and  on  the 
counter  address  to  that  of  the  city  being  carried  to  St.  James's  by  those 
who  were  deputed  for  this  purpose;  on  which  last  occasion  the  riot  act 
was  read  at  the  palace  gate,  and  Lord  Talbot,  the  lord-steward,  had  his 
staff  of  office  broken  in  his  hand.  Edit. 

*  As  Junius  was  extremely  severe  in  his  censures  on  Lord  Mansfield, 
it  is  deemed  a  mere  act  of  justice  to  extract  a  part  of  his  lordship's  speech 
on  the  reversal  of  Mr.  Wilkes's  outlawry,  by  which  it  will  appear,  such 
was  the  temper  of  the  times,  that  the  chief  justice  was  even  privately 
threatened  upon  the  occasion,  should  his  decision  of  the  cause  be  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  popular  opinion  of  the  day.  The  extract  is  well  worthy  the 
reader's  perusal,  as  a  specimen  of  eloquence  notoften  equalled,  and  rarely 
excelled;  it  forms  the  conclusion  of  his  address. 

"  I  have  now  gone  through  the  several  errors  assigned  by  the  defendant, 
and  which  have  been  ingeniously  argued,  and  confidently  relied  on  by  his 
counsel  at  the  bar;  I  have  given  my  sentiments  upon  them,  and  if  upon 
the  whole,  after  the  closest  attention  to  what  has  been  said,  and  with  the 
strongest  inclination  in  favour  of  the  defendant,  no  arguments  which  have 
been  urged,  no  cases  which  have  been  cited,  no  reasons  that  occur  to  me 
are  sufficient  to  satisfy  me  in  my  conscience  and  judgment  that  this  out- 
lawry should  be  reversed,  I  am  bound  to  affirm  it — and  here  let  me  make 
a  pause. 

"  Many  arguments  have  been  suggested,  both  in  and  out  of  court,  upon 
the  consequences  of  establishing  this  outlawry,  either  as  they  may  affect 
the  defendant  as  an  individual,  or  the  public  in  general.  As  to  the  first, 
whatever  they  may  be,  the  defendant  has  brought  them  upon  himself; 
they  are  inevitable  consequences  of  law  arising  from  his  own  act;  if  the 
penalty,  to  which  he  is  thereby  subjected,  is  more  than  a  punishment  ade- 
quate to  the  crime  he  has  committed,  he  should  not  have  brought  himself 
into  this  unfortunate  predicament,  by  flying  from  the  justice  of  his  coun- 
try; he  thought  proper  to  do  so,  and  he  must  take  the  fruits  of  his  own 
conduct,  however  bitter  and  unpalatable  they  may  be;  and  although  we 
maybe  heartily  sorry  for  any  person  who  has  brought  himself  into  this 
situation,  it  is  not  in  our  power,  God  forbid  it  should  ever  be  in  our  power, 
todeliver  him  from  it;  we  cannot  prevent  the  judgment  of  the  law  by  cre- 
ating irregularity  in  the  proceedings;  we  cannot  prevent  the  consequences 
of  that  judgment  by  pardoning  the  crime;  if  the  defendant  has  any  preten- 
sions to  mercy,  those  pretensions  must  be  urged,  and  that  power  exer- 
cised in  another  place,  where  the  constitution  has  wisely  and  necessarily 
vested  it:  the  crown  will  judge  for  itself;  it  does  not  belong  to  us  to  inter- 
fere 


JUNIUS.  81 

nary  care  you  took  of  his  dignity  and  of  the  safety  of  his 
person,    a  hen,  at  a  crisis  which  courtiers   affected  to  call 

fere  with  punishment,  we  have  only  to  declare  the  law;  none  of  us  had 
any  concern  in  the  prosecution  of  this  business,  nor  any  wishes  upon  the 
event  of  it;  it  was  not  our  fault  that  the  d  fendant  was  prosecuted  for  the 
libels  upon  which  he  has  been  convicted;  I  took  no  share  in  another  place, 
in  the  measures  which  were  taken  to  prosecute  him  for  one  of  them;  it 
was  not  our  fault  that  he  was  convicted;  it  was  not  our  fault  that  he  fled; 
it  was  not  our  fault  that  he  was  outlawed;  it  was  not  our  fault  that  he 
rendered  himself  up  to  justice;  none  of  us  revived  the  prosecution  against 
him,  nor  could  any  one  of  us  stop  that  prosecution  when  it  was  revived;  it  is 
not  our  fault  if  there  are  not  any  errors  upon  the  record,  nor  is  it  in  our 
power  to  create  any  if  there  are  none;  we  are  bound  by  our  oath  and  in  our 
consciences,  to  give  such  a  judgment  as  the  law  will  warrant,  and  as  our 
reason  can  prove;  such  a  judgment  as  we  must  stand  or  fall  by,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  present  times,  and  of  posterity;  in  doing  it,  therefore,  we 
must  have  regard  to  our  reputation  as  honest  men,  and  men  of  skill  and 
knowledge  competent  to  the  stations  we  hold;  no  considerations  whatso- 
ever should  mislead  us  from  this  great  object  to  which  we  ever  ought,  and 
I  trust,  ever  shall  direct  our  attention.  But  consequences  of  a  public  na- 
ture, reasons  of  state,  political  ones,  have  been  strongly  urged,  (private 
anonymous  letters  sent  to  me,  I  shall  pass  over)  open  avowed  publications 
which  have  been  judicially  noticed,  and  may  therefore  be  mentioned,  have 
endeavoured  to  influence  or  intimidate  the  court,  and  so  prevail  upon  us  to 
trifle  and  prevaricate  with  God,  our  consciences  and  the  public:  it  has 
been  intimated  that  consequences  of  a  frightful  nature  will  flow  from  the 
establishment  of  this  outlawry;  it  is  said  the  people  expect  the  reversal, 
that  the  temper  of  the  times  demand  it,  that  the  multitude  will  have  it  so; 
that  the  continuation  of  the  outlawry  in  full  force,  will  not  be  endured;  that 
the  execution  of  the  law  upon  the  defendant  will  be  resisted:  these  are  ar- 
guments which  will  not  weigh  a  feather  with  me.  If  insurrection  and  re- 
bellion are  to  follow  our  determination,  we  have  not  to  answer  for  the  con- 
sequences, though  we  should  be  the  innocent  cause — we  can  only  say  Fiat 
justitia  mat  caelum;  we  shall  discharge  our  duty  without  expectations  of 
approbation,  or  the  apprehensions  of  censure;  if  we  are  subjected  to  the 
latter  unjustly,  we  must  submit  to  it;  we  cannot  prevent  it,  we  will  take 
care  not  to  deserve  it.  He  must  be  a  weak  man  indeed  who  can  be  stag- 
gered by  such  a  consideration. 

"The  misapprehension,  or  the  misrepresentation  of  the  ignorant  or  the 
wicked,  the  Mendax  Infamia,  which  is  the  consequence  of  both,  are  equal- 
ly indifferent  to,  unworthy  the  attention  of,  and  incapable  of  making  any 
impression  on  men  of  firmness  and  intrepidity. — Those  who  imagine  judges 
are  capable  of  being  influenced  by  such  unworthy,  indirect  means,  most 
grossly  deceive  themselves;  and  for  my  own  part  I  trust  that  my  temper, 
and  the  colour  and  conduct  of  my  life,  have  clothed  me  with  a  suit  of  ar- 
mour to  shield  me  from  such  arrows.  If  I  have  ever  supported  the  King's 
Vol.  I.  L  measures; 


82  LETTERS  OF 

alarming,  you  left  the  metropolis  exposed  for  two  nights 
together,  to  every  species  of  riot  and  disorder.  The  secu- 
ritv  of  the  royal  residence  from  insult  was  then  sufficiently 
provided  for  in  Mr.  Conway's  firmness*  and  Lord  Wey- 

measures;  if  I  have  ever  afforded  any  assistance  to  government;  if  I  have 
discharged  my  duty  as  a  public  or  private  character,  by  endeavouring  to 
preserve  pure  and  perfect  the  principles  of  the  constitution,  maintaining, 
unsullied,  the  honour  of  the  courts  of  justice,  and  by  an  upright  adminis- 
tration of,  to  give  a  due  effect  to  the  laws,  I  have  hitherto  done  it  without 
any  other  gift  or  reward  than  that  most  pleasing  and  most  honourable  one, 
the  conscientious  conviction  of  doing  what  was  right.  I  do  not  affect  to 
scorn  the  opinion  of  mankind;  1  wish  earnestly  for  popularity;  I  will  seek 
and  will  have  popularity;  but  I  will  tell  you  how  I  will  obtain  it;  I  will  have 
that  popularity  which  follows,  and  not  that  which  is  run  after.  It  is  not 
the  applause  of  a  day;  it  is  not  the  hufczas  of  thousands  that  can  give  a 
moment's  satisfaction  to  a  rational  being;  that  man's  mind  must  indeed  be 
a  weak  one,  and  his  ambition  of  a  most  depraved  sort,  who  can  be  capti- 
vated by  such  wretched  allurements,  or  satisfied  with  such  momentary 
gratifications.  I  say  with  the  Roman  orator,  and  can  say  it  with  as  much 
truth  as  he  did,  '  Ego  hoc  ammo  semper  Jui,  tit  invidiam  virtute  partam,  glo- 
riatn  non  infamiam  putarem:'  But  the  threats  have  been  carried  further; 
personal  violence  has  been  denounced,  unless  public  humour  be  complied 
with;  I  do  not  fear  such  threats;  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  reason  to  fear 
them:  it  is  not  the  genius  of  the  worst  of  men  in  the  worst  of  times  to  pro- 
ceed to  such  shocking  extremities:  but  if  such  an  event  should  happen,  let 
it  be  so;  even  such  an  event  might  be  productive  of  wholesome  effects; 
such  a  stroke  might  rouse  the  better  part  of  the  nation  from  their  lethar- 
gic condition  to  a  state  of  activity,  to  assert  and  execute  the  law,  and  pun- 
ish the  daring  and  impious  hands  which  had  violated  it;  and  those  who 
now  supinely  behold  the  danger  which  threatens  all  liberty,  from  the  most 
abandoned  licentiousness,  might,  by  such  an  event,  be  awakened  to  a  sense 
of  their  situation,  as  drunken  men  are  oftentimes  stunned  into  sobriety. 
If  the  security  of  our  persons  and  our  property,  of  all  we  hold  dear  and 
valuable,  are  to  depend  upon  the  caprice  of  a  giddy  multitude,  or  to  be  at 
the  disposal  of  a  giddy  mob;  if,  in  compliance  with  the  humours,  and  to 
appease  the  clamours  of  those,  all  civil  and  political  institutions  are  to  be 
disregarded  or  overthrown,  a  life  somewhat  more  than  sixty  is  not  worth 
preserving  at  such  a  price,  and  he  can  never  die  too  soon,  who  lays  down 
his  life  in  support  and  vindication  of  the  policy,  the  government  and  the 
constitution  of  his  country."  Edit. 

*  The  Hon.  Henry  Seymour  Conway  was  brother  to  Lord  Hertford,  and 
father  of  the  present  Mrs.  Darner,  who  constitutes  indeed  his  only  issue. 
He  had  enjoyed  several  places  of  high  rank  and  confidence  at  court  during 
the  beginning  of  his  Majesty's  reign,  but  was  stripped  of  them  all  by  the 
Duke  of  Grafton,  in  consequence  of  having  votGd  in  the  lower  house,  in 
opposition  to  government,  upon  the  question  of  General  Warrants.  He 

was 


JUNIUS.  83 

mouth's  discretion;  while  the  prime  minister  of  Great  Bri- 
tain, in  a  rural  retirement,  and  in  the  arms  of  faded  beauty*, 
had  lost  all  memory  of  his  Sovereign,  his  country  and  him- 
self. In  these  instances  you  might  have  acted  with  vigour, 
for  you  would  have  had  the  sanction  of  the  laws  to  support 
you.  The  friends  of  government  might  have  defended  you 
without  shame,  and  moderate  men,  who  wish  well  to  the 
peace  and  good  order  of  society,  might  have  had  a  pretence 
for  applauding  your  conduct.  But  these  it  seems  were  not 
occasions  worthy  of  your  Grace's  interposition.  You  reser- 
ved the  proofs  of  your  intrepid  spirit  for  trials  of  greater 
hazard  and  importance;  and  now,  as  if  the  most  disgraceful 
relaxation  of  the  executive  authority  had  given  you  a  claim 
of  credit  to  indulge  in  excesses  still  more  dangerous,  you 
seem  determined  to  compensate  amply  for  your  former 
negligence;  and  to  balance  the  non-execution  of  the  laws 
with  a  breach  of  the  constitution.  From  one  extreme  you 
suddenly  start  to  the  other,  without  leaving,  between  the 
weakness  and  the  fury  of  the  passions,  one  moment's  inter- 
val for  the  firmness  of  the  understanding. 

These  observations,  general  as  they  are,  might  easily  be 
extended  into  a  faithful  history  of  your  Grace's  administra- 
tion, and  perhaps  may  be  the  employment  of  a  future  hour. 
But  the  business  of  the  present  moment  will  not  suffer  me  to 
look  back  to  a  series  of  events,  which  cease  to  be  interesting 
or  important,  because  they  are  succeeded  by  a  measure  so 
singularly  daring,  that  it  excites  all  our  attention,  and  en- 
grosses all  our  resentment. 

Your  patronage  of  Mr.  Luttrell  has  been  crowned  with  suc- 
cess, f  With  this  precedent  before  you,  with  the  principles  on 

was  a  man  of  an  independent  mind,  but  often  wavering  in  his  opinion,  and 
like  his  favourite  cousin,  Horace  Walpole,  much  attached  to  literature 
and  the  fine  arts.  Edit. 

*  The  duke  of  Grafton  was,  at  that  time,  living-  with  the  celebrated 
Nancy  Parsons,  afterwards  Lady  Maynard.  Edit. 

f  In  the  contest  for  the  county  of  Middlesex,  the  House  of  Commons, 
on  the  3d  of  February,  1769,  had  proceeded  to  the  severe  step  of  expelling 
Mr.  Wilkes,  for,  among-  other  offences,  republishing-,  in  the  St.  James's 
Chronicle,  Lord  Weymouth's  letter  to  Mr.  Justice  Ponton,  one  of  the  ma- 
gistrates 


84  LETTERS  OF 

which  it  was  established,  and  with  a  future  House  of  Com- 
mons, perhaps  less  virtuous  than  the  present,  every  county 

gistrates  for  Surry,  with  the  ensuing  prefatory  remarks:  "  I  send  you  the 
following  authentic  state  paper,  the  date  of  which,  prior  by  more  than 
three  weeks  to  the  fatal  10th  of  May,  1768,  shews  how  long  the  horrid 
massacre  in  St.  George's  Field's  had  been  planned  and  determined  upon, 
before  it  was  carried  into  execution,  and  how  long  a  hellish  project  can  be 
brooded  over  by  some  infernal  spirits,  without  one  moment's  remorse."  Mr. 
Wilkes  having  admitted  the  publication,  the  house  resolved,  "  That  John 
Wilkes,  Esq.  a  member  of  this  house,  who  hath,  at  the  bar  of  this  house, 
confessed  himself  to  be  the  author  and  publisher  of  what  this  house  has 
resolved  to  be  an  insolent,  scandalous,  and  seditious  libel;  and  who  has 
been  convicted  in  the  court  of  King's  bench,  of  having  printed  and  pub- 
lished a  seditious  libel,  and  three  obscene  and  impious  libels;  and,  by  the 
judgment  of  the  said  court,  has  been  sentenced  to  undergo  twenty-two 
months  imprisonment,  and  is  now  in  execution  under  the  said  judgment, 
be  expelled  this  house,"  which  was  carried  in  the  affirmative  by  219  against 
137.  On  the  16th  of  February,  1769,  he  was  a  second  time  returned  for 
Middlesex  without  opposition.  On  the  day  following  the  election  was  va- 
cated, and  he  was  declared  by  a  majority  of  the  house,  incapable  of  being 
elected  into  that  parliament.  Notwithstanding  this  resolution  of  the  house, 
he  was  a  third  time,  March  10,  elected  without  opposition;  for  Dingley, 
as  before  observed,  had  not  been  able  to  obtain  even  a  nomination.  This 
election,  however,  was  also  declared  void  the  next  day.  The  great  mass 
of  Middlesex  freeholders,  was  in  consequence  thrown  into  a  more  violent 
commotion  than  ever,  and  insisted  upon  their  right  to  return  whomsoever 
they  pleased,  let  parliament  expel  him  as  often  as  it  pleased.  Wilkes  was 
a  third  time  expelled:  and  to  oppose  him  with  a  certainty  of  success,  ano- 
ther device  was  now  contrived,  and  under  the  promise  that  he  should  cer- 
tainly be  seated  for  the  county  in  opposition  to  Wilkes,  Col.  Luttrell  was 
prevailed  upon  to  relinquish  the  seat  he  then  held,  and  to  oppose  him  with 
all  the  force  that  could  be  mustered  upon  the  occasion.  With  every  possi- 
ble effort  exerted  in  his  favour,  however,  Luttrell  was  incapable  of  obtain- 
ing more  than  two  hundred  and  ninety-six  votes,  and  Wilkes  was  again 
returned  almost  unanimously.  The  ministry  were  intimidated:  but  still 
resolved  to  carry  their  new  device  into  effect.  Wilkes  was  not  now,  there- 
fore, to  be  openly  re-expelled,  but,  which  amounted  to  the  same  thing,  to 
be  declared  incapable  of  sitting  in  parliament  in  consequence  of  his  pre- 
vious expulsion,  and  Luttrell  was  of  course  declared  the  sitting  member. 
Yet,  with  an  incongruity  not  often  to  be  paralleled,  the  sheriffs,  instead  of 
being  punished,  were  admitted  to  have  done  their  duty,  in  allowing  Wilkes 
to  have  become  a  candidate,  and  in  returning  him  as  fairly  elected. 

The  nation  at  large  now  joined  in  the  cause  of  the  Middlesex  freehold- 
ers; the  parliament  from  exercising  the  unconstitutional  act  of  rejecting 
one  person  who  was  a  real  member  of  its  body,  without  an  adequate  cause, 
and  in  admitting  another  person  to  be  a  member  who  had  never  been  re- 
turned 


JUNIUS.  85 

in  England,  under  the  auspices  of  the  treasury,  may  be  repre- 
sented as  completely  as  the  county  of  Middlesex.  Posterity 
will  be  indebted  to  your  Grace  for  not  contenting  yourself 
with  a  temporary  expedient,  but  entailing  upon  them  the 
immediate  blessings  of  your  administration.  Boroughs  were 
already  too  much  at  the  mercy  of  government.  Counties 
could  neither  be  purchased  nor  intimidated.  But  their  solemn 
determined  election  may  be  rejected,  and  the  man  they  de- 
test may  be  appointed,  by  another  choice,  to  represent  them 
in  parliament.  Yet  it  is  admitted,  that  the  sheriffs  obeyed 
the  laws  and  performed  their  duty*.  The  return  they  made 
must  have  been  legal  and  valid,  or  undoubtedly  they  would 
have  been  censured  for  making  it.  With  every  good-natured 
allowance  for  your  Grace's  youth  and  inexperience,  there 
are  some  things  which  you  cannot  but  know.  You  cannot 
but  know  that  the  right  of  the  freeholders,  to  adhere  to  their 
choice  (even  supposing  it  improperly  exerted)  was  as  clear 
and  indisputable  as  that  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  ex- 
clude one  of  their  own  members: — nor  is  it  possible  for  you 
not  to  see  the  wide  distance  there  is  between  the  negative 
power  of  rejecting  one  man,  and  the  positive  power  of  ap- 
pointing another.  The  right  of  expulsion,  in  the  most  favour- 
able sense,  is  no  more  than  the  custom  of  parliament.  The 
right  of  election  is  the  very  essence  of  the  constitution.  To 
violate  that  right,  and  much  more  to  transfer  it  to  any  other 
set  of  men,  is  a  step  leading  immediately  to  the  dissolution 
of  all  government.  So  far  forth  as  it  operates,  it  constitutes 
a  House  of  Commons,  which  does  not  represent  the  people. 
A  House  of  Commons  so  formed  would  involve  a  contra- 
diction and  the  grossest  confusion  of  ideas;  but  there  are 
some  ministers,  my  Lord,  whose  views  can  only  be  answer- 
turned  by  a  majority  of  votes,  was  declared  to  have  passed  into  a  state  of 
political  incapacity,  every  vote  and  act  of  which  must  necessarily  be  incom- 
petent and  illegislative,  and  the  throne  was  thronged  with  petitions  and 
remonstrances  from  every  part  of  the  kingdom,  beseeching  his  Majesty  to 
dissolve  it.  Edit. 

•  Sir  Fletcher  Norton,  when  it  was  proposed  to  punish  the  sheriffs,  de- 
clared in  the  House  of  Commons  that  they,  in  returning  Mr.  Wilkes,  had 
done  no  more  than  their  dutv. 


86  LETTERS  OF 

ed  by  reconciling  absurdities,  and  making  the  same  propo- 
sition, which  is  false  and  absurd  in  argument,  true  in  fact. 

This  measure,  my  Lord,  is  however  attended  with  one 
consequence,  favourable  to  the  people,  which  I  am  persuad- 
ed you  did  not  foresee*.  While  the  contest  lay  between  the 
ministry  and  Mr.  Wilkes,  his  situation  and  private  character 
gave  you  advantages  over  him,  which  common  candour,  if  not 
the  memory  of  your  former  friendship,  should  have  forbidden 
you  to  make  use  of.  To  religious  men,  you  had  an  opportu- 
nity of  exaggerating  the  irregularities  of  his  past  life; — to 
moderate  men  you  held  forth  the  pernicious  consequences 
of  faction.  Men,  who  with  this  character,  looked  no  farther 
than  to  the  object  before  them,  were  not  dissatisfied  at  see- 
ing Mr.  Wilkes  excluded  from  parliament.  You  have  now 
taken  care  to  shift  the  question;  or,  rather,  you  have  created 
a  new  one,  in  which  Mr.  Wilkes  is  no  more  concerned  uian 
any  other  English  gentleman.  You  have  united  this  country 
against  you  on  one  grand  constitutional  point,  on  the  leci- 
sion  of  which  our  existence  as  a  free  people,  absolutely  de- 
pends. You  have  asserted,  not  in  words  but  in  fact,  that  re- 
presentation in  parliament  does  not  depend  upon  the  choice 
of  the  freeholders.  If  such  a  case  can  possibly  happen  once, 
it  may  happen  frequently;  it  may  happen  always — and  if  three 
hundred  votes  by  any  mode  of  reasoning  whatsoever,  can 
prevail  against  twelve  hundred,  the  same  reasoning  would 
equally  have  given  Mr.  Luttrell  his  seat  with  ten  votes,  or 
even  with  one.  The  consequences  of  this  attack  upon  the 
constitution  are  too  plain  and  palpable  not  to  alarm  the  dullest 
apprehension.  I  trust  you  will  find,  that  the  people  of  Eng- 
land are  neither  deficient  in  spirit  nor  understanding,  though 
you  have  treated  them,  as  if  they  had  neither  sense  to  feel, 
nor  spirit  to  resent.  We  have  reason  to  thank  God  and  our 
ancestors,  that  there  never  yet  was  a  minister  in  this  coun- 
try, who  could  stand  the  issue  of  such  a  conflict;  and  with 
every  prejudice  in  favour  of  your  intentions,  I  see  no  such 
abilities  in  vour  Grace,  as  should  entitle  you  to  succeed  in  an 
enterprize,  in  which  the  ablest  and  basest  of  your  predeces- 

*  The  reader  is  desired  to  mark  this  prophecy. 


JUNIUS.  87 

sors  have  found  their  destruction.  You  may  continue  to  de- 
ceive your  gracious  master  with  false  representations  of  the 
temper  and  condition  of  his  subjects.  You  may  command  a 
venal  vote,  because  it  is  the  common  established  appendage 
of  your  office.  But  never  hope  that  the  freeholders  will  make 
a  tame  surrender  of  their  rights,  or  that  an  English  army 
will  join  with  you  in  overturning  the  liberties  of  their  coun- 
try. They  know  that  their  first  duty,  as  citizens,  is  para- 
mount to  all  subsequent  engagements,  nor  will  they  prefer 
the  discipline,  nor  even  the  honours  of  their  profession,  to 
those  sacred  original  rights,  which  belonged  to  them  before 
they  were  soldiers,  and  which  they  claim  and  possess  as  the 
birthright  of  Englishmen. 

Return,  my  Lord,  before  it  be  too  late,  to  that  easy  insipid 
system,  which  you  first  set  out  with.  Take  back  your  mis- 
tress*;— the  name  of  friend  may  be  fatal  to  her,  for  it  leads 
to  treachery  and  persecution.  Indulge  the  people.  Attend 
Newmarket.  Mr.  Luttrell  may  again  vacate  his  seat;  and 
Mr.  Wilkes,  if  not  persecuted,  will  soon  be  forgotten.  To  be 
weak  and  inactive  is  safer  than  to  be  daring  and  criminal; 
and  wide  is  the  distance  between  a  riot  of  the  populace  and 
a  convulsion  of  the  whole  kingdom.  You  may  live  to  make 
the  experiment,  but  no  honest  man  can  wish  you  should 
survive  it. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XII. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 

My  Lord,  30  May,  1769. 

If  the  measures  in  which  you  have  been  most  successful, 
had  been  supported  by  any  tolerable  appearance  of  argument.; 
I  should  have  thought  my  time  not  ill  employed,  in  continu- 

*  The  Duke,  about  this  time,  had  separated  himself  from  Ann  Parsons, 
but  proposed  to  continue  united  with  her,  on  some  platonic  terms  of 
friendship,  which  she  rejected  with  contempt.  His  baseness  to  this  wo- 
man is  beyond  description  or  belief. 


88  LETTERS  OF 

ing  to  examine  your  conduct  as  a  minister,  and  stating  it 
fairly  to  the  public.  But  when  I  see  questions,  of  the  highest 
national  importance,  carrie d  as  they  have  been,  and  the  first 
principles  of  the  constitution  openly  violated,  without  argu- 
ment or  decency,  I  confess,  I  give  up  the  cause  in  despair. 
The  meanest  of  your  predecessors  had  abilities  sufficient  to 
give  a  colour  to  their  measures.  If  they  invaded  the  rights 
of  the  people,  they  did  not  dare  to  offer  a  direct  insult  to 
their  understanding;  and,  in  former  times,  the  most  venal 
parliaments  made  it  a  condition,  in  their  bargain  with  the 
minister,  that  he  should  furnish  them  with  some  plausible 
pretences  for  selling  their  country  and  themselves.  You  have 
had  the  merit  of  introducing  a  more  compendious  system  of 
government  and  logic.  You  neither  address  yourself  to  the 
passions,  nor  to  the  understanding,  but  simply  to  the  touch. 
You  apply  yourself  immediately  to  the  feelings  of  your 
friends,  who,  contrary  to  the  forms  of  parliament,  never  en- 
ter heartily  into  a  debate,  until  they  have  divided. 

Relinquishing,  therefore,  all  idle  views  of  amendment  to 
your  Grace,  or  of  benefit  to  the  public,  let  me  be  permitted 
to  consider  your  character  and  conduct  merely  as  a  subject 
of  curious  speculation. — There  is  something  in  both,  which 
distinguishes  you  not  only  from  all  other  ministers,  but  all 
other  men.  It  is  not  that  you  do  wrong  by  design,  but  that 
you  should  never  do  right  by  mistake.  It  is  not  that  your 
indolence  and  your  activity  have  been  equally  misapplied, 
but  that  the  first  uniform  principle,  or,  if  I  may  call  it  the 
genius  of  your  life,  should  have  carried  you  through  every 
possible  change  and  contradiction  of  conduct,  without  the 
momentary  imputation  or  colour  of  a  virtue;  and  that  the 
wildest  spirit  of  inconsistency  should  never  once  have  be- 
trayed you  into  a  wise  or  honourable  action.  This,  I  own, 
gives  an  air  of  singularity  to  your  fortune,  as  well  as  to  your 
disposition.  Let  us  look  back  together  to  a  scene,  in  which 
a  mind  like  yours  will  find  nothing  to  repent  of.  Let  us  try, 
my  Lord,  how  well  you  have  supported  the  various  rela- 
tions in  which  you  stood,  to  your  Sovereign,  your  country, 
your  friends,  and  yourself.  Give  us,  if  it  be  possible,  some 


JUNIUS.  89 

excuse  to  posterity,  and  to  ourselves,  for  submitting  to  your 
administration.  If  not  the  abilities  of  a  great  minister,  if  not 
the  integrity  of  a  patriot,  or  the  fidelity  of  a  friend,  shew  us, 
at  least  the  firmness  of  a  man.— For  the  sake  of  your  mis- 
tress, the  lover  shall  be  spared.  I  will  not  lead  her  into  pub- 
lic, as  you  have  done,  nor  will  I  insult  the  memory  of  de- 
parted beauty.  Her  sex,  which  alone  made  her  amiable  in 
your  eyes,  makes  her  respectable  in  mine. 

The  character  of  the  reputed  ancestors  of  some  men,  has 
made  it  possible  for  their  descendants  to  be  vicious  in  the 
extreme,  without  being  degenerate.  Those  of  your  Grace, 
for  instance,  left  no  distressing  examples  of  virtue,  even  to 
their  legitimate  posterity,  and  you  may  look  back  with  plea- 
sure to  an  illustrious  pedigree,  in  which  heraldry  has  not  left 
a  single  good  quality  upon  record  to  insult  or  upbraid  you*. 
You  have  better  proofs  of  your  descent,  my  Lord,  than  the 
register  of  a  marriage,  or  any  troublesome  inheritance  of  re- 
putation. There  are  some  hereditary  strokes  of  character, 
by  which  a  family  may  be  as  clearly  distinguished  as  by  the 
blackest  features  of  the  human  face.  Charles  the  first  lived 
and  died  a  hypocrite.  Charles  the  second  was  a  hypocrite  of 
another  sort,  and  should  have  died  upon  the  same  scaffold. 
At  the  distance  of  a  century,  we  see  their  different  characters 
happily  revived,  and  blended  in  your  Grace.  Sullen  and  se- 
vere without  religion,  profligate  without  gaiety,  you  live  like 
Charles  the  second,  without  being  an  amiable  companion, 
and,  for  aught  I  know,  may  die  as  his  father  did,  without  the 
reputation  of  a  martyr. 

You  had  already  taken  your  degrees  with  credit  in  those 
schools,  in  which  the  English  nobility  are  formed  to  virtue, 
when  you  were  introduced  to  Lord  Chatham's  protectionf. 
From  Newmarket,  White's,  and  the  Opposition,  he  gave  you 

*  The  first  Duke  of  Grafton  was  a  natural  son  of  Charles  II.  During-  the 
pi-ogress  of  the  revolution  he  abandoned  the  Stuarts  for  King  William; 
and  his  descendants  had  hitherto  generally  ranked  themselves  among  tiie 
party  ofthe  Whigs.  Edit. 

f  To  understand  these  passages,  the  reader  is  referred  to  a  noted  pam- 
phlet, called  the  History  rf  the  Minority. 

.   Vol.  I.  M 


90  LETTERS  Ol- 

io the  world  with  an  air  of  popularity,  which  young  men 
usually  set  out  with,  and  seldom  preserve: — grave  and  plau- 
sible enough  to  be  thought  fit  for  business;  too  young  for 
treachery;  and,  in  short,  a  patriot  of  no  unpromising  expec- 
tations. Lord  Chatham  was  the  earliest  object  of  your 
political  wonder  and  attachment*;  yet  you  deserted  him, 
upon  the  first  hopes  that  offered  of  an  equal  share  of  power 
with  Lord  Rockingham.  When  the  Duke  of  Cumberland's 
first  negociation  failed,  and  when  the  favourite  was  pushed 
to  the  last  extremity,  you  saved  him,  by  joining  with  an  ad- 
ministration, in  which  Lord  Chatham  had  refused  to  engage. 
Still,  however,  he  was  your  friend,  and  you  are  yet  to  ex- 
plain to  the  world,  why  you  consented  to  act  without  him, 
or  why,  after  uniting  with  Lord  Rockingham,  you  deserted 
and  betrayed  him.  You  complained  that  no  measures  were 
taken  to  satisfy  your  patron,  and  that  your  friend,  Mr. 
Wilkes,  who  had  suffered  so  much  for  the  party,  had  been 
abandoned  to  his  fate.  They  have  since  contributed,  not  a 
little,  to  your  present  plenitude  of  power;  yet,  I  think,  Lord 
Chatham  has  less  reason  than  ever  to  be  satisfied;  and  as  for 
Mr.  Wilkes,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  misfortune  of  his 

*  The  Duke  of  Grafton  was  first  introduced  into  the  political  world  at  an 
early  period  of  life,  under  the  auspices  and  protection  of  Lord  Chatham 
(then  Mr.  Pitt)  as  a  determined  Whig-.  To  the  administration  of  Lord 
Egremont  and  the  Earl  of  Granville  succeeded  that  of  the  Duke  of  Bedfi  >rd, 
■who  soon  became  obnoxious  to  Lord  Bute,  the  guardian  of  his  Majesty's 
non-age,  and  still  his  confidential  adviser.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  was 
deputed  to  propose  another  administration  conjointly  to  Mr.  Pitt,  Lord 
Temple,  and  Lord  Lyttleton.  They  all  objected,  however,  to  the  undue 
influence  of  the  noble  favourite,  and  the  duke's  proposal  was  declined- 
The  Marquis  of  Rockingham  was  now  applied  to,  and  prevailed  upon  to 
take  the  lead,  and  form  an  administration  of  his  own:  Mr.  Pitt  refused 
to  unite  in  it,  but  the  Duke  of  Grafton  deserted  him,  and  accepted  the 
office  of  secretary  of  state.  With  this  administration,  however,  he  soon 
became  chagrined  and  resigned  his  office.  Lord  Chatham  again  received 
him  into  communion;  and  in  the  ministry,  shortly  after  planned  and  carried 
into  effect  by  himself,  in  which  he  held  the  privy  seal,  he  nominated  the 
Duke  of  Grnfton  first  lord  of  the  treasury.  Atthe  head  of  this  new  system, 
however,  Lord  Chatham  did  not  long  continue — he  withdrew  in  disgust; 
but  t;>e  noble  duke,  instead  of  following  him,  took  the  lead  upon  himself, 
and  commenced  an  administration  of  his  own.  Edit- 


JUNIUS.  91 

life,  that  you  should  have  so  many  compensations  to  make 
in  the  closet  for  your  former  friendship  with  him.  Your  gra- 
cious master  understands  your  character,  and  makes  you  a 
persecutor,  because  you  have  been  a  friend. 

Lord  Chatham  formed  his  last  administration  upon  prin- 
ciples which  you  certainly  concurred  in,  or  you  could  never 
have  been  placed  at  the  head  of  the  treasury.  By  deserting 
those  principles,  and  by  acting  in  direct  contradiction  to 
them,  in  which  he  found  you  were  secretly  supported  in  the 
closet,  you  soon  forced  him  to  leave  you  to  yourself,  and  to 
withdraw  his  name  from  an  administration,  which  had  been 
formed  on  the  credit  of  it.  You  had  then  a  prospect  of 
fri  ndships  better  suited  to  your  genius,  and  more  likely  to 
fix  your  disposition.  Marriage  is  the  point  on  which  every 
rake  is  stationary  at  last;  and  truly,  my  Lord,  you  may  well 
be  weary  of  the  circuit  you  have  taken,  for  you  have  now 
fairly  travelled  through  every  sign  in  the  political  zodiac, 
from  the  Scorpion,  in  which  you  stung  Lord  Chatham,  to 
the  hopes  of  a  Virgin*  in  the  house  of  Bloomsbury.  One 
would  think  that  you  had  had  sufficient  experience  of  the 
frailty  of  nuptial  engagements,  or,  at  least,  that  such  a  friend- 
ship as  the  Duke  of  Bedford's,  might  have  been  secured  to 
you  by  the  auspicious  marriage  of  your  late  Duchess  withf 
his  nephew.  But  ties  of  this  tender  nature  cannot  be  drawn 
too  close;  and  it  may  possibly  be  a  part  of  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford's ambition,  after  making  her  an  honest  woman,  to  work 
a  miracle  of  the  same  sort  upon  your  Grace.  This  worthy 
nobleman  has  long  dealt  in  virtue.  There  has  been  a  large 
consumption  of  it  in  his  own  family;  and,  in  the  way  of  traf- 
fic, I  dare  say,  he  has  bought  and  sold  more  than  half  the 
representative  integrity  of  the  nation. 

In  a  political  view,  this  union  is  not  imprudent.  The  fa- 
vour of  princes  is  a  perishable  commodity.  You  have  now  a 
strength  sufficient  to  command  the  closet;  and,  if  it  be  neces- 

*  His  Grace  had  lately  married  Miss  Wrottesley,  niece  of  the  Good  Ger- 
trude, Duchess  of  Bedford. 

f  Miss  Liddel,  after  her  divorce  from  the  Duke,  married  Lord  Upper 
Ossorv. 


92  LETTERS  OF 

sary  to  betray  one  friendship  more,  you  may  set  even  Lord 
Bute  at  defiance.  Mr.  Stuart  Mackenzie  mav  possibly  remem- 
ber what  use  the  Duke  of  Bedford  usually  makes  of  his  pow- 
er*; and  our  gracious  Sovereign,  I  doubt  not,  rejoices  at 
this  first  appearance  of  union  among  his  servants.  His  late 
Majesty,  under  the  happy  influence  of  a  family  connexion 
between  his  ministers,  was  relieved  from  the  cares  of  govern- 
ment. A  more  active  prince  may  perhaps  observe,  with  sus- 
picion, by  what  degrees  an  artful  servant  grows  upon  his 
master,  from  the  first  unlimited  professions  of  duty  and  at- 
tachment, to  the  painful  representation  of  the  necessity  of  the 
royal  service,  and  soon,  in  regular  progression,  to  the  humble 
insolence  of  dictating  in  all  the  obsequious  forms  of  peremp- 
tory submission.  The  interval  is  carefully  employed  in  form- 
ing connexions,  creating  interests,  collecting  a  party,  and  lay- 
ing the  foundation  of  double  marriagesf;  until  the  deluded 
prince,  who  thought  he  had  found  a  creature  prostituted  to 
his  service,  and  insignificant  enough  to  be  always  dependent 
upon  his  pleasure,  finds  him  at  last  too  strong  to  be  com- 
manded, and  too  formidable  to  be  removed. 

Your  Grace's  public  conduct,  as  a  minister,  is  but  the 
counterpart  of  your  private  history;— thcsame  inconsisten- 
cy, the  same  contradictions.  In  America  we  trace  you,  from 
the  first  opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act:}:,  on  principles  of  con- 

*  Mr.  Stuart  Mackenzie  was  brother  to  the  earl  of  Bute.  The  Duke  of 
Bedford's  abuse  of  power  here  referred  to,  is  again  noticed  in  Junius, 
Letter  xxxvi.  and  consisted  in  compelling  his  Majesty  to  displace  Mr. 
Mackenzie  from  the  office  of  Lord  Privy  Seal  of  Scotland,  shortly  after 
his  appointment,  in  favour  of  Lord  Frederick  Campbell.  In  this  act  of  co- 
ertion  Mr.  Grenville  bore  an  equal  part  with  the  noble  duke.  Upon  the 
resignation  of  these  ministers,  Mr.  Stuart  Mackenzie  was  reinstated  in 
his  former  post.  edit. 

f  See  notes  in  the  preceding  page.     edit. 

\  At  the  period  here  referred  to,  the  American  colonies  had  acquired 
such  a  population,  and  proportion  of  public  wealth,  as  to  render  it  neces- 
sary to  enquire,  more  critically  than  had  hitherto  been  done  into  the  pecu- 
liar mode  of  its  political  connexion  with  the  mother  country,  and  to  bind 
it  to  the  latter  in  a  more  definite  bond.  It  was  found  that  most  of  the  pro- 
vincial  departments  were  chartered  by  the  crown  and  expressly  exempted 
from  legislative  taxation,  but  that  others  were  not  chartered  in  any  way, 
and  of  course  possessed  no  such  privilege.  From  the  capacity  of  their 

being 


JUNIUS.  93 

venience,  to  Mr.  Pitt's  surrender  of  the  right;  then  forward 
to  Lord  Rockingham's  surrender  of  the  fact;  then  back  again 
to  Lord  Rockingham's  declaration  of  the  right;  then  forward 
to  taxation  with  Mr.  Townshend;  and  in  the  last  instance, 
from  the  gentle  Conway's  undetermined  discretion,  to  blood 
and  compulsion  with  the  Duke  of  Bedford*:  Yet  if  we  may 
believe  the  simplicity  of  Lord  North's  eloquence,  at  the 
opening  of  next  sessions  you  are  once  more  to  be  the  patron 
of  America.  Is  this  the  wisdom  of  a  great  minister?  or  is  it 
the  ominous  vibration  of  a  pendulum?  Had  you  no  opinion 

being-  now  able  to  contribute  to  the  exigencies  of  the  state,  from  a  desire 
to  equalize  the  entire  colonization,  and  from  a  professed  belief  that  char- 
ters granted  by  the  crown  with  such  an  exemption  as  above,  displayed  an 
undue  stretch  of  the  prerogative,  it  was  determined  upon,  by  Mr.  Gren- 
ville's  administration,  to  bring  the  matter  boldly  to  an  issue,  and  for  the 
legislature  to  claim  an  authority  over  the  colonies  by  passing  an  act  which 
should  immediately  affect  them.  The  statute  enacted  for  this  purpose  was 
the  Stamp  Act,  which  imposed  a  duty  upon  many  of  the  articles  most  cur- 
rent through  the  colonies.  The  colonies  were  thrown  into  a  general  com- 
motion by  this  measure,  the  duty  could  not  be  collected,  and  almost  every 
province  became  ripe  for  rebellion. 

At  home  the  members  of  opposition  doubted,  or  affected  to  doubt,  both 
the  propriety  and  legality  of  the  conduct  of  administration.  Mr.  Pitt  denied 
the  right,  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham  admitted  the  right,  but  denied  the 
expediency;  while  many  politicians  perplexed  by  the  sophistry  advanced  by 
the  pleaders  on  all  sides,  vacillated  in  their  opinion,  and  sometimes  united 
with  one  party  and  sometimes  with  another.  Of  this  last  description  was 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  who  occasionally  favoured  Mr.  Pitt's  opinion,  occa- 
sionally the  Marquis  of  Rockingham's,  and  at  last  sided  with  Mr.  Charles 
Townshend  in  a  determined  resolution  to  carry  the  system  of  taxation  into 
effect  at  all  hazards.  Edit. 

*  Mr.  Knox,  in  his  "  Extra  official  State  Papers,"  from  which  extracts 
have  been  made  in  notes  to  Miscellaneous  Letters,  Nos.  xxxi.and  liii. 
narrates  the  following  anecdote  as  having  happened  to  himself  on  the  re- 
peal of  the  Stamp  Act. 

"  The  morning  after  the  resolution  passed  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
to  repeal  the  Stamp  Act,  and  to  bring  in  the  declaratory  bill,  I  was  sent 
for  to  a  meeting  of  the  Opposition  at  Mr.  Rigby's  in  Parliament  Street; 
when  I  came  there,  Mr.  Grenville  and  Mr.  Rigby  came  oat  to  me  and  told 
me,  the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  several  others  desired  to  know  my  opinion 
of  the  effects  which  those  resolutions  would  produce  in  America.  My  an- 
answer  was  in  few  words — addresses  of  thanks  and  measures  of  rebellion. 
Mr.  Grenville  smiled  and  shook  his  head,  and  Mr.  Rigby  swore  by  G— d 
he  thought  so,  and  both  wished  me  a  good  morning."  Edit. 


©4  LETTERS  OF 

of  your  own,  my  Lord?  or  was  it  the  gratification  of  betray- 
ing every  party  with  which  you  have  been  united,  and  of  de- 
serting every  political  principle,  in  which  you  had  concurred? 

Your  enemies  may  turn  their  eyes  without  regret  from 
this  admirable  system  of  provincial  government.  They  will 
find  gratification  enough  in  the  survey  of  your  domestic  and 
foreign  policy. 

If,  instead  of  disowning  Lord  Shelburne,  the  British  court 
had  interposed  with  dignity  and  firmness,  you  know,  my 
Lord,  that  Corsica  would  never  have  been  invaded*.  Tae 
French  saw  the  weakness  of  a  distracted  ministry,  and  were 
justified  in  treating  you  with  contempt.  They  would  proba* 
bly  have  yielded  in  the  first  instance,  rather  than  hazard  a 
rupture  with  this  country;  but,  being  once  engaged,  they 
cannot  retreat  without  dishonour.  Common  sense  foresees 
consequences,  which  have  escaped  your  Grace's  pens: 'ration. 
Either  we  suffer  the  French  to  make  an  acquisition,  the  im- 
portance of  which  you  have  probably  no  conception  i  t,  or 
we  oppose  them  by  an  underhand  management,  which  only 
disgraces  us  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  without  answering  any 
purpose  of  policy  or  prudence.  From  secret,  indirect  .issist- 
ance,  a  transition  to  some  more  open  decisive  measures  be- 
comes unavoidable;  till  at  last  we  find  ourselves  principals  in 
the  war,  and  are  obliged  to  hazard  every  thing  for  an  object, 
which  might  have  originally  been  obtained  without  expense 
or  danger.  I  am  not  versed  in  the  politics  of  the  north;  but 
this  I  believe  is  certain,  that  half  the  monev  you  have  distri- 
buted to  carry  the  expulsion  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  or  even  jour 
secretary's  share  in  the  last  subscription,  would  have  kept 
the  Turks  at  your  devotionf .   Was  it  ceconomy,  my  Lord? 

*  Lord  Shelburne,  father  to  the  present  Marquis  of  Lansdown,  while 
secretary  of  state,  instructed  our  ambassador  at  the  court  of  Versailles  to 
remonstrate,  in  very  spirited  terms,  on  the  intended  invasion  of  Corsica 
by  the  French.  His  Lordship's  conduct,  however,  was  disavowed  by  his 
colleagues,  and  he  resigned  his  situation,  Oct.  21,  1768.  But  see  note  to 
Litter  i  n.  p.  46. 

f  The  Ottoman  Porte  was  at  this  time  in  the  hands  of  French  influence; 
the  court  of  Tuilleries  supplying  it  with  French  officers,  and  instructing 
it,  through  their  means,  in  modern  tactics,  so  as  to  enable  it  to  support 

more 


JUNIUS.  95 

or  did  the  coy  resistance  you  have  constantly  met  with  in  the 
British  senate,  make  you  despair  of  corrupting  the  Divan? 
Your  friends  indeed  have  the  first  claim  upon  your  bounty, 
but  if  five  hundred  pounds  a  year  can  be  spared  in  pension  to 
Sir  John  Moore*,  it  would  not  have  disgraced  you  to  have 
allowed  something  to  the  secret  service  of  the  public. 

You  will  say  perhaps  that  the  situation  of  affairs  at  home 
demanded  and  engrossed  the  whole  of  your  attention.  Here, 
I  confess,  you  have  been  active.  An  amiable,  accomplished 
Prince  ascends  the  throne  under  the  happiest  of  all  auspices, 
the  acclamations  and  united  affections  of  his  subjects.  The 
first  measures  of  his  reign,  and  even  the  odium  of  a  favourite, 
were  not  able  to  shake  their  attachment.  Tour  services,  my 
Lord,  have  been  more  successful.  Since  you  were  permitted 
to  take  the  lead,  we  have  seen  the  natural  effects  of  a  system 
of  government,  at  once  both  odious  and  contemptible.  We 
have  seen  the  laws  sometimes  scandalously  relaxed,  some- 
times violently  stretched  beyond  their  tone.  We  have  seen 
the  sacred  person  of  the  Sovereign  insulted;  and  in  profound 
peace,  and  with  an  undisputed  title,  the  fidelity  of  his  sub- 
jects brought  by  his  own  servants  into  public  questionf. 
Without  abilities,  resolution,  or  interest,  you  have  done 
more  than  Lord  Bute  could  accomplish  with  all  Scotland  at 
his  heels. 

Your  Grace,  little  anxious  perhaps  either  for  present  or 
future  reputation,  will  not  desire  to  be  handed  down  in  these 
colours  to  posterity.  You  have  reason  to  flatter  yourself  that 
the  memory  of  your  administration  will  survive  even  the 

more  successfully  the  war  in  which  it  was  engaged  with  Russia.  The 
growing  extent  of  French  influence  over  the  continent,  might  in  this  in- 
stance perhaps  have  easily  been  curtailed  by  a  little  address,  and  even 
transferred  to  the  court  of  St.  James's.  Edit. 

*  Sir  John  Moore  was  an  old  Newmarket  acquaintance  of  his  Grace's, 
where  he  succeeded  in  completely  squandering  away  his  private  fortune. 
The  Duke  of  Grafton,  out  of  compassion,  obtained  for  him  the  pension  in 
question.  Edit. 

fThe  wise  Duke,  about  this  time,  exerted  all  the  influence  of  govern- 
ment  to  procure  addresses  to  satisfy  the  King  of  the  fidelity  of  his  subjects. 
They  came  in  very  thick  from  Scotland;  but,  after  the  appearance  of  this 
letter,  we  heard  no  more  of  them. 


96  LETTERS  OF 

forms- of  a  constitution,  which  our  ancestors  vainly  hoped 
would  be  immortal;  and  as  for  your  personal  character,  I 
will  not,  for  the  honour  of  human  nature,  suppose  that  you 
can  wish  to  have  it  remembered.  The  condition  of  the  pre- 
senttimes  is  desperate  indeed;  but  there  is  a  debt  due  to  those 
who  come  after  us,  and  it  is  the  historian's  office  to  punish, 
though  he  cannot  correct.  I  do  not  give  you  to  posterity  as  a 
pattern  to  imitate,  but  as  an  example  to  deter;  and  as  your 
conduct  comprehends  every  thing  that  a  wise  or  honest  mi- 
nister should  avoid,  I  mean  to  make  you  a  negative  instruc- 
tion to  your  successors  for  ever. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XIII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  12  June,  1769. 

The  Duke  of  Grafton's  friends,  not  finding  it  convenient, 
to  enter  into  a  contest  with  Junius,  are  now  reduced  to  the 
last  melancholy  resource  of  defeated  argument,  the  flat 
general  charge  of  scurrility  and  falsehood.  As  for  his  stile, 
I  shall  leave  it  to  the  critics.  The  truth  of  his  facts  is  of 
more  importance  to  the  public.  They  are  of  such  a  nature, 
that  I  think  a  bare  contradiction  will  have  no  weight  with 
any  man,  who  judges  for  himself.  Let  us  take  them  in  the 
order  in  which  they  appear  in  his  last  letter. 

1.  Have  not  the  first  rights  of  the  people,  and  the  first 
principles  of  the  constitution  been  openly  invaded,  and  the 
very  name  of  an  election  made  ridiculous  by  the  arbitrary 
appointment  of  Mr.  Luttrell? 

2.  Did  not  the  Duke  of  Grafton  frequently  lead  his  mis- 
tress into  public,  and  even  place  her  at  the  head  of  his  table, 
as  if  he  had  pulled  down  an  ancient*  temple  of  Venus,  and 

*  Miss  Parsons  had  at  this  time  surpassed  the  prime  both  of  her  youth 
and  beauty. 

See  this  anecdote  related  more  in  detail  in  Miscellaueous  Letters, 
No.  xx.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  97 

could  bury  all  decency  and  shame  under  the  ruins? — Is  this 
the  man  who  dares  to  talk  of  Mr.  Wilkes's  morals? 

3.  Is  not  the  character  of  his  presumptive  ancestors  as 
strongly  marked  in  him,  as  if  he  had  descended  from  them 
in  a  direct  legitimate  line?  The  idea  of  his  death  is  only  pro- 
phetic; and  what  is  prophecy  but  a  narrative  preceding  the 
fact? 

4.  Was  not  Lord  Chatham  the  first  who  raised  him  to 
the  rank  and  post  of  a  minister,  and  the  first  whom  he  aban- 
doned? 

5.  Did  he  not  join  with  Lord  Rockingham,  and  betray 
him? 

6.  Was  he  not  the  bosom  friend  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  whom  he 
now  pursues  to  destruction? 

7.  Did  he  not  take  his  degrees  with  credit  at  Newmarket, 
White's,  and  the  Opposition? 

8.  After  deserting  Lord  Chatham's  principles,  and  sacri- 
ficing his  friendship,  is  he  not  now  closely  united  with  a  set 
of  men,  who,  though  they  have  occasionally  joined  with  all 
parties,  have  in  every  different  situation,  and  at  all  times, 
been  equally  and  constantly  detested  by  this  country? 

9.  Has  not  Sir  John  Moore  a  pension  of  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year? — This  may  probably  be  an  acquittance  of 
favours  upon  the  turf;  but  is  it  possible  for  a  minister  to  offer 
a  grosser  outrage  to  a  nation,  which  has  so  very  lately  clear- 
ed away  the  beggary  of  the  civil  list,  at  the  expense  of  more 
than  half  a  million? 

10.  Is  there  any  one  mode  of  thinking  or  acting  with  re- 
spect to  America,  which  the  Duke  of  Grafton  has  not  suc- 
cessively adopted  and  abandoned? 

11.  Is  there  not  a  singular  mark  of  shame  set  upon  this 
man,  who  has  so  little  delicacy  and  feeling  as  to  submit  to 
the  opprobrium  of  marrying  a  near  relation  of  one  who  had 
debauched  his  wife? — In  the  name  of  decency,  how  are  these 
amiable  cousins  to  meet  at  their  uncle's  table? — It  will  be  a 

j  scene  in  CEdipus,  without  the  distress. — Is  it  wealth,  or  wit, 
:  or  beauty, — or  is  the  amorous  youth  in  love? 
Vol.  I.  N 


98  LETTERS  OF 

The  rest  is  notorious.  That  Corsica  has  been  sacrificed  to 
the  French:  thai  in  some  instances  the  laws  have  been  scan- 
dalously relaxed,  and  in  others  daringly  violated;  and  that 
the  King's  subjects  have  been  called  upon  to  assure  him  of 
their  fidelity,  in  spite  of  the  measures  of  his  servants. 

A  writer,  who  builds  his  arguments  upon  facts  such  as 
these,  is  not  easily  to  be  confuted.  He  is  not  to  be  answered 
by  general  assertions,  or  general  reproaches.  He  may  want 
eloquence  to  amuse  or  persuade,  but,  speaking  truth,  he  must 
always  convince. 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XIV. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  22  June,  1/69. 

The  name  of  Old  Noll  is  destined  to  be  the  ruin  of  the 
house  of  Stuart.  There  is  an  ominous  fatality  in  it,  which 
even  the  spurious  descendants  of  the  family  cannot  escape. 
Oliver  Cromwell  had  the  merit  of  conducting  Charles  the 
first  to  the  block.  Your  correspondent  Old  Noll*,  appears 
to  have  the  same  design  upon  the  Duke  of  Grafton.  His 
arguments  consist  better  with  the  title  he  has  assumed,  than 
with  the  principles  he  professes;  for  though  he  pretends  to 
be  an  advocate  for  the  Duke,  he  takes  care  to  give  us  the 
best  reasons,  why  his  patron  should  regularly  follow  the  fate 
of  his  presumptive  ancestor. — Through  the  whole  course  of 
the  Duke  of  Grafton's  life,  I  see  a  strange  endeavour  to  unite 
contradictions,  which  cannot  be  reconciled.  He  marries  to 
be  divorced; — he  keeps  a  mistress  to  remind  him  of  conju- 

*  A  correspondent  under  this  signature  replied  to  the  preceding  letter 
©f Philo  Junius,  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  dated  June  19;  introducing 
his  observations  with  the  following  paragraph. 

"Though  Philo  Junius  is,  in  every  sense,  unworthy  of  an  answer  as 
a  writer;  yet  as  he  has  compressed  into  small  compass  what  he  calls  the 
facts  advanced  by  Junius,  I  will  answer  them  briefly  one  by  one,  and 
for  ever  drop  a  subject  that  could  only  acquire  consequence  by  discussing 
H  in  a  serious  manner."  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  99 

gal  endearments,  and  he  chooses  such  friends,  as  it  is  a  virtue 
in  him  to  desert.  If  it  were  possible  for  the  genius  of  that 
accomplished  president,  who  pronounced  sentence  upon 
Charles  the  first,  to  be  revived  in  some  modern  sycophant*, 
his  Grace,  I  doubt  not,  would  by  sympathy  discover  him 
among  the  dregs  of  mankind,  and  take  him  for  a  guide 
in  those  paths,  which  naturally  conduct  the  minister  to  the 
scaffold. 

The  assertion  that  two  thirds  of  the  nation  approve  of  the 
acceptance  of  Mr.  Luttrell  (for  even  Old  Noll  is  too  modest 
to  call  it  an  election)  can  neither  be  maintained  nor  confuted 
by  argument.  It  is  a  point  of  fact,  on  which  every  English 
gentleman  will  determine  for  himself.  As  to  lawyers,  their 
profession  is  supported  by  the  indiscriminate  defence  of  right 
and  wrong,  and  I  confess  I  have  not  that  opinion  of  their 
knowledge  or  integrity,  to  think  it  necessary  that  they  should 
decide  for  me  upon  a  plain  constitutional  question.  With 
respect  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Luttrell,  the  chancellor 
has  never  yet  given  any  authentic  opinionf.  Sir  Fletcher 
Norton:}:  is  indeed  an  honest,  a  very  honest  man;  and  the 
Attorney  General^  is  ex  officio  the  guardian  of  liberty,  to 

*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  nf  the  name  of  Bradshaw. 
— Author. 

And  as  little  so  that  Old  Noll  was  the  nick  name  of  Oliver  Cromwell. 
There  is  a  peculiar  severity  in  the  comparison  of  the  two  periods  and  the 
two  families.  The  Duke  of  Grafton  was  descended  from  the  Stuarts;  and 
Bradshaw  was  the  name  of  the  president  of  the  regicide  court,  which, 
under  the  secret  influence  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  (or  Old  Noll)  condemned 
Charles  the  first  to  death.  Bradshaw  was  the  name  of  the  Duke  of  Graf- 
ton's private  secretary  at  the  present  moment,  and  Juxius  here  insinuates 
that  he  was  also  the  author  of  the  letter  signed  Old  Noll,  which  had  a 
chance  of  proving  as  fatal  to  his  Grace's  cause,  as  ever  the  names  of  Brad- 
shaw or  Old  Noll  had  proved  fatal  to  his  Grace's  ancestor. 

Bradshaw,  before  his  present  appointment,  had  been  an  under-clerk  in 
the  war-office,  and  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  private  secretary,  for  his 
activity  and  dispatch  of  business.  In  the  month  of  May,  1772,  he  was  ap- 
pointed a  lord  of  the  admiralty. 

For  a  further  account,  see  Letter  xxxvi.  note.  Edit. 

f  Lord  Camden.  Edit. 

t  At  this  time  Chief  Justice  in  Eyre,  and  just  appointed  a  privy  coun- 
sellor, with  a  salary  of  30001.  Edit. 

§Mr.  De  Grey,  afterwards  Lord  Walsingham.  EniT. 


100  LETTERS  OF 

take  care,  I  presume,  that  it  shall  never  break  out  into  a 
criminal  excess.  Doctor  Blackstone  is  solicitor  to  the  Queen. 
The  Doctor  recollected  that  he  had  a  place  to  preserve, 
though  he  forgot  that  he  had  a  reputation  to  lose.  We  have 
now  the  good  fortune  to  understand  the  Doctor's  principles, 
as  well  as  writings.  For  the  defence  of  truth,  of  law,  and  rea- 
son, the  Doctor's  book  maybe  safely  consulted;  but  whoever 
wishes  to  cheat  a  neighbour  of  his  estate*,  or  to  rob  a  coun- 
try of  its  nghtsf,  need  make  no  scruple  of  consulting  the 
Doctor  himself. 

The  example  of  the  English  nobility  may,  for  aught  I 
know,  sufficiently  justify  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  when  he  in- 
dulges his  genius  in  all  the  fashionable  excesses  of  the  age; 
yet,  considering  his  rank  and  station,  I  think  it  would  do  him 
more  honour  to  be  able  to  deny  the  fact,  than  to  defend  it  by 
such  authority.  But  if  vice  itself  could  be  excused,  there  is 
yet  a  certain  display  of  it,  a  certain  outrage  to  decency,  and 
violation  of  public  decorum,  which,  for  the  benefit  of  society, 
should  never  be  forgiven.  It  is  not  that  he  kept  a  mistress 
at  home,  but  that  he  constantly  attended  her  abroad. — It  is 
not  the  private  indulgence,  but  the  public  insult  of  which  I 
complain.  The  name  of  Miss  Parsons  would  hardly  have 
been  known,  if  the  first  lord  of  the  treasury  had  not  led  her 
in  triumph  through  the  Opera  House,  even  in  the  presence 
of  the  Queen:}:.  When  we  see  a  man  act  in  this  manner,  we 
may  admit  the  shameless  depravity  of  his  heart,  but  what  are 
we  to  think  of  his  understanding? 

His  Grace,  it  seems,  is  now  to  be  a  regular  domestic  man, 
and  as  an  omen  of  the  future  delicacy  and  correctness  of  his 

*  Doctor  Blackstone  had  been,  unfortunately  for  himself,  an  adviser  of 
Sir  James  Lowther  against  the  Duke  of  Portland,  in  the  dispute  concern- 
ing the  Cumberland  crown  lands,  upon  the  obsolete  law  of  nullum  tempus. 
See  Letter  lvii.  Edit. 

-j-  Doctor  Blackstone  had  also  supported  government  in  its  rejection  of 
Mr.  Wilkes,  as  member  for  the  county  of  Middlesex.  See  Letters  of 
Junius,  No.  xvm,  as  also  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  i.vi.  subscribed 
Simplex.  Edit. 

$  See  this  transaction  more  fully  detailed  in  Miscellaneous  Letters, 
No.  xx.  Edit. 


JUNIUS;  101 

conduct,  he  marries  a  first  cousin  of  the  man,  who  had  fixed 
that  mark  and  title  of  infamy  upon  him,  which,  at  the  same 
moment,  makes  a  husband  unhappy  and  ridiculous.  The  ties 
of  consanguinity  may  possibly  preserve  him  from  the  same 
fate  a  second  time,  and  as  to  the  distress  of  meeting,  I  take 
for  granted  the  venerable  uncle  of  these  common  cousins  has 
settled  the  etiquette  in  such  a  manner,  that,  if  a  mistake 
should  happen,  it  may  reach  no  farther  than  from  Madame 
ma  Jem  me  to  Madame  ma  cousine. 

The  Duke  of  Grafton  has  always  some  excellent  reason 
for  deserting  his  friends. — The  age  and  incapacity  of  Lord 
Chatham*;— the  debility  of  Lord  Rockingham;— or  the  in- 
famy of  Mr.  Wilkes.  There  was  a  time  indeed  when  he  did 
not  appear  to  be  quite  so  well  acquainted,  or  so  violently 
offended  with  the  infirmities  of  his  friends.  But  now  I  con- 
fess they  are  not  ill  exchanged  for  the  youthful,  vigorous 
virtue  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford; — the  firmness  of  General 
Conwayf; — the  blunt,  or  if  I  may  call  it,  the  aukward  in- 
tegrity of  Mr.  Rigby^:,  and  the  spotless  morality  of  Lord 
Sandwich^. 

If  a  large  pension  to  a  broken  gambler||  be  an  act  worthy  of 
commendation,  the  Duke  of  Grafton's  connexions  will  fur- 
nish him  with  many  opportunities  of  doing  praiseworthy  ac- 
tions; and  as  he  himself  bears  no  part  of  the  expense,  the 

*  Lord  Chatham,  it  is  well  known,  laboured  under  a  premature  decrepi- 
tude of  body,  from  frequent  and  violent  attacks  of  the  gout;  but  his  mind 
was  never  affected  bv  such  paroxysms.  Edit. 

f  See  his  character  in  Letter  xi.  note.  Edit. 

i  Mr.  Rigby  v\  as  introduced  into  political  life  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
to  whom  he  had  chiefly  recommended  himself  by  his  convivial  talents.  He 
at  length  attained  the  lucrative  post  of  paymaster  of  the  British  forces. 
His  pretensions  to  integrity  are  well  known,  even  to  the  present  moment, 
to  have  been  rather  uuk-ward. 

§  It  was  Lord  Sandwich,  who,  in  conjunction  with  Dr.  Warburton,  com- 
plained to  the  House  of  Lords,  of  Wilkes's  Essay  on  Woman,  and  induced 
their  lordships  interference;  in  consequence  of  which,  the  writer  was  pro- 
secuted by  the  crown.  The  irony  of  the  expression  here  adopted  proceeds 
from  the  well  known  fact  that  Lord  Sandwich  was  at  this  very  time  thf 
most  profligate  and  blasphemous  of  all  the  Bedford  party.  Edit. 

||  Sir  John  Moore. 


102  LETTERS  OF  , 

generosity  of  distributing  the  public  money  for  the  support 
of  virtuous  families  in  distress  will  be  an  unquestionable 
proof  of  his  Grace's  humanity. 

As  to  public  affairs*  Old  Noll  is  a  little  tender  of  descend- 
ing to  particulars.  He  does  not  deny  that  Corsica  has  been 
sacrificed  to  France,  and  he  confesses,  that  with  regard  to 
America,  his  patron's  measures  have  been  subject  to  some  va- 
riation ;  but  then  he  promises  wonders  of  stability  and  firmness 
for  the  future.  These  are  mysteries,  of  which  we  must  not 
pretend  to  judge  by  experience;  and  truly,  I  fear,  we  shall 
perish  in  the  Desert,  before  we  arrive  at  the  Land  of  Promise. 
In  the  regular  course  of  things,  the  period  of  the  Duke  of 
Grafton's  ministerial  manhood  should  now  be  approaching. 
The  imbecility  of  his  infant  state  was  committed  to  Lord 
Chatham.  Charles  Townshend  took  some  care  of  his  educa- 
tion* at  that  ambiguous  age,  which  lies  between  the  follies 
of  political  childhood,  and  the  vices  of  puberty.  The  empire 
of  the  passions  soon  succeeded.  His  earliest  principles  and 
connexions  were  of  course  forgotten  or  despised.  The  com- 
pany he  has  lately  kept  has  been  of  no  service  to  his  morals; 
and,  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  we  see  the  character  of 
his  time  of  life  strongly  distinguished.  An  obstinate  un- 
governable self  sufficiency  plainly  points  out  to  us  that  state 
of  imperfect  maturity,  at  which  the  graceful  levity  of  youth 
is  lost,  and  the  solidity  of  experience  not  yet  acquired.  It  is 
possible  the  young  man  may  in  time  grow  wiser,  and  reform; 
but,  if  I  understand  his  disposition,  it  is  not  of  such  corrigi- 
ble stuff,  that  we  should  hope  for  any  amendment  in  him, 
before  he  has  accomplished  the  destruction  of  this  country. 
Like  other  rakes,  he  may  perhaps  live  to  see  his  error,  but 
not  until  he  has  ruined  his  estate. 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 

*  Charles  Townshend,  younger  brother  of  the  first  marquis  of  Towns- 
hend, who  had  been  inducted  into  political  life  under  the  banners  of  the 
first  Lord  Holland,  drew  up  the  plan  for  taxing1  America,  which  the  Duke 
of  Grafton  was  persuaded  to  adopt,  and  thus  avowed  himself  to  be,  in  this 
instance,  a  pupil  of  Charles  Townshend,  who  was  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer at  the  period  here  referred  to,  in  which  office  he  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  North  in  1767.    Edit. 


JUNIUS.  103 


LETTER  XV. 


TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 
My  Lord.  8  luly,  1769. 

If  nature  had  given  you  an  understanding  qualified  to  keep 
pace  with  the  wishes  and  principles  of  your  heart,  she  would 
have  made  you,  perhaps,  the  most  formidable  minister  that 
ever  was  employed,  under  a  limited  monarch,  to  accomplish 
the  ruin  of  a  free  people.  When  neither  the  feelings  of  shame, 
the  reproaches  of  conscience,  nor  the  dread  of  punishment, 
form  anv  bar  to  the  designs  of  a  minister,  the  people  would 
have  too  much  reason  to  lament  their  condition,  if  they  did 
not  find  some  resource  in  the  weakness  of  his  understanding. 
We  owe  it  to  the  bounty  of  Providence,  that  the  completest 
depravity  of  the  heart  is  sometimes  strangely  united  with  a 
confusion  of  the  mind,  which  counteracts  the  most  favorite 
principles,  and  makes  the  same  man  treacherous  without  art, 
and  a  hypocrite  without  deceiving.  The  measures,  for  in- 
stance, in  which  your  Grace's  activity  has  been  chiefly  exerted, 
as  they  were  adopted  without  skill,  should  have  been  conduct- 
ed with  more  than  common  dexterity.  But  truly,  my  Lord,  the 
execution  has  been  as  gross  as  the  design.  By  one  decisive 
step,  you  have  defeated  all  the  arts  of  writing.  You  have 
fairly  confounded  the  intrigues  of  opposition,  and  silenced 
the  clamours  of  faction.  A  dark,  ambiguous  system  might 
require  and  furnish  the  materials  of  ingenious  illustration; 
and,  in  doubtful  measures,  the  virulent  exaggeration  of  party 
must  be  employed,  to  rouse  and  engage  the  passions  of  the 
people.  You  have  now  brought  the  merits  of  your  adminis- 
tration to  an  issue,  on  which  every  Englishman,  of  the  nar- 
rowest capacity,  may  determine  for  himself.  It  is  not  an 
alarm  to  the  passions,  but  a  calm  appeal  to  the  judgment  of 
the  people,  upon  their  own  most  essential  interests.  A  more 
experienced  minister  would  not  have  hazarded  a  direct  in- 
vasion of  the  first  principles  of  the  constitution,  before  he 
had  made  some  progress  in  subduing  the  spirit  of  the  people. 
With  such  a  cause  as  yours,  my  Lord,  it  is  not  sufficient  that 


104  LETTERS  OF 

you  have  the  court  at  your  devotion,  unless  you  can  find 
means  to  corrupt  or  intimidate  thejurv.  The  collective  body 
of  the  people  form  that  jury,  and  from  their  decision  there  is 
but  one  appeal. 

Whether  you  have  talents  to  support  you,  at  a  crisis  of  such 
difficulty  and  danger,  should  long  since  have  been  considered. 
Judging  truly  of  your  disposition,  you  have  perhaps  mistaken 
the  extent  of  your  capacity.  Good  faith  and  folly  have  so 
long  been  received  as  synonimous  terms,  that  the  reverse  of 
the  proposition  has  grown  into  credit,  and  every  villain  fan- 
cies himself  a  man  of  abilities.  It  is  the  apprehension  of  your 
friends,  my  Lord,  that  you  have  drawn  some  hasty  conclu- 
sion of  this  sort,  and  that  a  partial  reliance  upon  your  moral 
character  has  betrayed  you  beyond  the  depth  of  your  under- 
standing. You  have  now  carried  things  too  far  to  retreat. 
You  have  plainly  declared  to  the  people  what  they  are  to  ex- 
pect from  the  continuance  of  your  administration.  It  is  time 
for  your  Grace  to  consider  what  you  also  may  expect  in  re- 
turn from  their  spirit  and  their  resentment. 

Since  the  accession  of  our  most  gracious  Sovereign  to  the 
throne,  we  have  seen  a  system  of  government,  which  may 
well  be  called  a  reign  of  experiments.  Parties  of  all  denomi- 
nations have  been  employed  and  dismissed.  The  advice  of 
the  ablest  men  in  this  country  has  been  repeatedly  called  for 
and  rejected;  and  when  the  Royal  displeasure  has  been  sig- 
nified to  a  minister,  the  marks  of  it  have  usually  been  pro- 
portioned to  his  abilities  and  integrity.  The  spirit  of  the 
favourite  had  some  apparent  influence  upon  every  admin- 
istration; and  every  set  of  ministers  preserved  an  appearance 
of  duration  as  long  as  they  submitted  to  that  influence.  But 
there  were  certain  services  to  be  performed  for  the  Favour- 
ite's security,  or  to  gratify  his  resentments,  which  your  pre- 
decessors in  office  had  the  wisdom  or  the  virtue  not  to  un- 
dertake. The  moment  this  refractory  spirit  was  discovered, 
their  disgrace  was  determined.  Lord  Chatham,  Mr.  Gren- 
ville,  and  Lord  Rockingham  have  successively  had  the 
honour  to  be  dismissed  for  preferring  their  duty,  as  servants 
of  the  public,  to  those   compliances  which  were  expected 


JUNIUS.  105 

from  their  station.  A  submissive  administration  was  at  last 
gradually  collected  from  the  deserters  of  all  parties,  inter- 
ests, and  connexions:  and  nothing  remained  but  to  find  a 
leader  for  these  gallant  well-disciplined  troops.  Stand  forth, 
my  Lord,  for  thou  art  the  man.  Lord  Bute  found  no  re- 
source of  dependence  or  security  in  the  proud,  imposing 
superiority  of  Lord  Chatham's  abilities,  the  shrewd  inflexi- 
ble judgment  of  Mr.  Grenville*,  nor  in  the  mild  but  deter- 
mined integrity  of  Lord  Rockingham.  His  views  and  situa- 
tion required  a  creature  void  of  all  these  properties;  and  he 
was  forced  to  go  through  every  division,  resolution,  compo- 
sition, and  refinement  of  political  chemistry,  before  he  hap- 
pily arrived  at  the  caput  mortuum  of  vitriol  in  your  Grace. 
Flat  and  insipid  in  your  retired  state,  but  brought  into  ac- 
tion, you  become  vitriol  again.  Such  are  the  extremes  of 
alternate  indolence  or  fury,  which  have  governed  your  whole 
administration.  Your  circumstances  with  regard  to  the  peo- 
ple soon  becoming  desperate,  like  other  honest  servants,  you 
determined  to  involve  the  best  of  masters  in  the  same  diffi- 
culties with  yourself.  We  owe  it  to  your  Grace's  well- 
directed  labours,  that  your  Sovereign  has  been  persuaded 
to  doubt  of  the  affections  of  his  subjects,  and  the  people  to 
suspect  the  virtues  of  their  Sovereign,  at  a  time  when  both 
were  unquestionable.  You  have  degraded  the  royal  dignity 
into  a  base,  dishonourable  competition  with  Mr.  Wilkes, 
nor  had  you  abilities  to  carry  even  this  last  contemptible  tri- 
umph over  a  private  man,  without  the  grossest  violation  of 

*  Mr.  G.  Grenville,  younger  brother  of  Lord  Temple,  and  brother  in 
law  to  Lord  Chatham,  was  a  political  eleve  of  his  maternal  uncle  Lord 
Cobham.  He  first  attached  himself  to  the  Tory  party,  in  consequence  of 
marrying1  the  daughter  of  Sir  Wm.  Wyndham,  the  confidential  friend  of 
Bolingbroke,  and  father  of  Lord  Egremont;  and  was  made  one  of  the  se- 
cretaries of  state,  when  Lord  Bute  in  1762  was  appointed  first  Lord  of 
the  Treasury.  He  planned  the  American  Stamp  Act,  and  commenced  the 
opposition  to  Wilkes.  He  afterwards,  however,  became  disgusted  with 
Lord  Bute,  and,  upon  his  resignation,  firmly  attached  himself  to  the  party 
of  Lord  Rockingham;  the  most  pure  and  unmixt  Whig  leader  of  his  day, 
with  whom  also  Lord  Temple  and  the  Earl  of  Chatham  had  now  united 
themselves.  Edit 

Vol.  I.  O 


106  LETTERS  OF 

the  fundamental  laws  of  the  constitution  and  rights  of  the 
people.  But  these  are  rights,  my  Lord,  which  you  can  no 
more  annihilate,  than  you  can  the  3oil  to  which  they  are  an- 
nexed. The  question  no  longer  turns  upon  points  of  national 
honour  and  security  abroad,  or  on  the  degrees  of  expedience 
and  propriety  of  measures  at  home.  It  was  not  inconsistent 
that  you  should  abandon  the  cause  of  liberty  in  another  coun- 
try*, which  you  had  persecuted  in  your  own;  and  in  the  com- 
mon arts  of  domestic  corruption,  we  miss  no  part  of  Sir  Ro- 
bert Walpole's  systemf  except  his  abilities.  In  this  humble 
imitative  line,  you  might  long  have  proceeded,  safe  and  con- 
temptible. You  might,  probably,  never  have  risen  to  the 
dignity  of  being  hated,  and  even  have  been  despised  with 
moderation.  But  it  seems  you  meant  to  be  distinguished, 
and,  to  a  mind  like  yours,  there  was  no  other  road  to  fame 
but  by  the  destruction  of  a  noble  fabric,  which  you  thought 
had  been  too  long  the  admiration  of  mankind.  The  use  you 
have  made  of  the  military  force  introduced  an  alarming 
change  in  the  mode  of  executing  the  laws.  The  arbitraiy 
appointment  of  Mr.  Luttrell  invades  the  foundation  of  the 
laws  themselves,  as  it  manifestly  transfers  the  right  of  legis- 
lation from  those  whom  the  people  have  chosen,  to  those 
whom  they  have  rejected.  With  a  succession  of  such  ap- 
pointments, we  may  soon  see  a  House  of  Commons  collect- 
ed, in  the  choice  of  which  the  other  towns  and  counties  of 
England  will  have  as  little  share  as  the  devoted  county  of 
Middlesex. 

Yet,  I  trust,  your  Grace  will  find  that  the  people  of  this 
country  are  neither  to  be  intimidated  by  violent  measures, 
nor  deceived  by  refinements.  When  they  see  Mr.  Luttrell 
seated  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  mere  dint  of  power, 
and  in  direct  opposition  to  the  choice  of  a  whole  county, 
they  will  not  listen  to  those  subtleties,  by  which  every  arbi- 
trary exertion  of  authority  is  explained  into  the  law  and  pri- 
vilege of  parliament.  It  requires  no  persuasion  of  argument, 
but  simply  the  evidence  of  the  senses,  to  convince  them,  that 

*   Corsica.  Edit. 

f  See  note  to  Letter  xvi.  p.  111.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  107 

to  transfer  the  right  of  election  from  the  collective  to  the  re- 
presentative body  of  the  people,  contradicts  all  those  ideas 
of  a  House  of  Commons,  which  they  have  received  from 
their  forefathers,  and  which  they  have  already,  though  vain- 
ly perhaps,  delivered  to  their  children.  The  principles,  on 
which  this  violent  measure  has  been  defended,  have  added 
scorn  to  injury,  and  forced  us  to  feel,  that  we  are  not  only 
oppressed,  but  insulted. 

With  what  force,  my  Lord,  with  what  protection  are  you 
prepared  to  meet  the  united  detestation  of  the  people  of 
England?  The  city  of  London  has  given  a  generous  exam- 
ple to  the  kingdom,  in  what  manner  a  king  of  this  country 
ought  to  be  addressed*;  and  I  fancy,  my  Lord,  it  is  not  yet 
in  your  courage  to  stand  between  your  Sovereign  and  the 
addresses  of  his  subjects.  The  injuries  you  have  done  this 
country  are  such  as  demand  not  only  redress,  but  vengeance. 
In  vain  shall  you  look  for  protection  to  that  venal  vote, 
which  you  have  already  paid  for — another  must  be  pur- 
chased; and  to  save  a  minister,  the  House  of  Commons  must 
declare  themselves  not  only  independent  of  their  constitu- 
ents, but  the  determined  enemies  of  the  constitution.  Con- 
sider, my  Lord,  whether  this  be  an  extremity  to  which  their 
fears  will  permit  them  to  advance;  or,  if  their  protection 
should  fail  you,  how  far  you  are  authorized  to  rely  upon  the 
sincerity  of  those  smiles,  which  a  pious  court  lavishes  with- 
out reluctance  upon  a  libertine  by  profession.  It  is  not,  in- 
deed the  least  of  the  thousand  contradictions  which  attend 
you,  that  a  man,  marked  to  the  world  by  the  grossest  viola- 
tion of  all  ceremony  and  decorum,  should  be  the  first  ser- 
vant of  a  court,  in  which  prayers  are  morality,  and  kneeling 
is  religion.  Trust  not  too  far  to  appearances,  by  which  your 
predecessors  have  been  deceived,  though  they  have  not  been 
injured.  Even  the  best  of  princes  may  at  last  discover,  that 
this  is  a  contention,  in  which  every  thing  may  be  lost,  but 
nothing  can  be  gained;  and  as  you  became  minister  by  acci- 
dent, were  adopted  without  choice,  trusted  without  confi- 

*  See  this  subject  farther  noticed  in  Jfnits's  Letter  xxxvu. 


108  LETTERS  OF 

dence,  and  continued  without  favour,  be  assured  that,  when- 
ever an  occasion  presses,  you  will  be  discarded  without  even 
the  forms  of  regret.  You  will  then  have  reason  to  be  thank- 
ful, if  you  are  permitted  to  retire  to  that  seat  of  learning, 
which,  in  contemplation  of  the  system  of  your  life,  the  com- 
parative purity  of  your  manners  with  those  of  their  high 
steward,  and  a  thousand  other  recommending  circumstances, 
has  chosen  you  to  encourage  the  growing  virtue  of  their 
youth,  and  to  preside  over  their  education*.  Whenever  the 
spirit  of  distributing  prebends  and  bishopricks  shall  have 
departed  from  you,  you  will  find  that  learned  seminary  per- 
fectly recovered  from  the  delirium  of  an  installation,  and, 
what  in  truth  it  ought  to  be,  once  more  a  peaceful  scene  of 
slumber  and  thoughtless  meditation.  The  venerable  tutors 
of  the  university  will  no  longer  distress  your  modesty,  by 
proposing  you  for  a  pattern  to  their  pupils.  The  learned  dul- 
ness  of  declamation  will  be  silentf ;  and  even  the  venal  musei:, 
though  happiest  in  fiction,  will  forget  your  virtues.  Yet,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  succeeding  age,  I  could  wish  that  your  re- 
treat might  be  deferred,  until  your  morals  shall  happily  be 
ripened  to  that  maturity  of  corruption,  at  which  the  worst 
examples  cease  to  be  contagious. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XVI. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  19  July,  1769. 

A   great  deal    of   useless  argument  might  have   been 
saved,  in  the  political  contest  which  has  arisen  from  the 

*  The  Duke  of  Grafton  was  chancellor,  and  Lord  Sandwich  high  stew- 
ard of  the  university  of  Cambridge.  Edit. 

f  Dr.  Johnson  is  the  person  here  supposed  to  be  hinted  at  by  the  author. 
Edit. 

t  He  alludes  to  Gray's  celebrated  Ode  to  Music,  composed  and  per- 
formed on  the  installation  of  his  Grace  as  chancellor  of  the  university; 
beginning, 

Hence!  avannt!  'tis  holy  ground — 

Comus  and  his  midnight  crew,  £tc  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  109 

expulsion  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  and  the  subsequent  appointment  of 
Mr.  Luttrell,  if  the  question  had  been  once  stated  with  pre- 
cision, to  the  satisfaction  of  each  party,  and  clearly  under- 
stood by  them  both.  But  in  this,  as  in  almost  every  other 
dispute,  it  usually  happens  that  much  time  is  lost  in  referring 
to  a  multitude  of  cases  and  precedents,  which  prove  nothing 
to  the  purpose,  or  in  maintaining  propositions,  which  are 
either  not  disputed,  or,  whether  they  be  admitted  or  denied, 
are  entirely  indifferent  as  to  the  matter  in  debate;  until  at 
last  the  mind,  perplexed  and  confounded  with  the  endless 
subtleties  of  controversy,  loses  sight  of  the  main  question, 
and  never  arrives  at  truth.  Both  parties  in  the  dispute  are 
apt  enough  to  practise  these  dishonest  artifices.  The  man, 
who  is  conscious  of  the  weakness  of  his  cause,  is  interested 
in  concealing  it:  and,  on  the  other  side,  it  is  not  uncommon 
to  see  a  good  cause  mangled  by  advocates,  who  do  not  know 
the  real  strength  of  it. 

I  should  be  glad  to  know,  for  instance,  to  what  purpose, 
in  the  present  case,  so  many  precedents  have  been  produced 
to  prove,  that  the  House  of  Commons  have  a  right  to  expel 
one  of  their  own  members;  that  it  belongs  to  them  to  judge 
of  the  validity  of  elections;  or  that  the  law  of  parliament  is 
part  of  the  law  of  the  land*?  After  all  these  propositions  are 
admitted,  Mr.  Luttrell's  right  to  his  seat  will  continue  to  be 
just  as  disputable  as  it  was  before.  Not  one  of  them  is  at 
present  in  agitation.  Let  it  be  admitted  that  the  House  of 
Commons  were  authorized  to  expel  Mr.  Wilkes;  that  they 
are  the  proper  court  to  judge  of  elections,  and  that  the  law 
of  parliament  is  binding  upon  the  people;  still  it  remains  to 
be  enquired  whether  the  House,  by  their  resolution  in  fa- 
vour of  Mr.  Luttrell,  have  or  have  not  truly  declared  that 
law.  To  facilitate  this  enquiry,  I  would  have  the  question 
cleared  of  all  foreign  or  indifferent  matter.  The  following 
state  of  it  will  probably  be  thought  a  fair  one  by  both  parties; 
and  then  I  imagine  there  is  no  gentleman  in  this  country, 

*  The  reader  will  observe  that  these  admissions  are  made,  not  as  of  truths 
unquestionable,  but  for  the  sake  of  argument  and  in  order  to  bring  the 
real  question  to  issue. 


110  LETTERS  OF 

who  will  not  be  capable  of  forming  a  judicious  and  true 
opinion  upon  it.  I  take  the  question  to  be  strictly  this: 
"  Whether  or  no  it  be  the  known,  established  law  of  parlia- 
ment, that  the  expulsion  of  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, of  itself  creates  in  him  such  an  incapacity  to  be  re- 
elected, that,  at  a  subsequent  election,  any  votes  given  to  him 
are  null  and  void,  and  that  any  other  candidate,  who,  except 
the  person  expelled,  has  the  greatest  number  of  votes,  ought 
to  be  the  sitting  member." 

To  prove  that  the  affirmative  is  the  law  of  parliament,  I 
apprehend  it  is  not  sufficient  for  the  present  House  of  Com- 
mons to  declare  it  to  be  so.  We  may  shut  our  eyes  indeed  to 
the  dangerous  consequences  of  suffering  one  branch  of  the 
legislature  to  declare  new  laws,  without  argument  or  exam- 
ple, and  it  may  perhaps  be  prudent  enough  to  submit  to 
authority;  but  a  mere  assertion  will  never  convince,  much 
less  will  it  be  thought  reasonable  to  prove  the  right  by  the 
fact  itself.  The  ministry  have  not  yet  pretended  to  such  a 
tyranny  over  our  minds.  To  support  the  affirmative  fairly,  it 
will  either  be  necessary  to  produce  some  statute,  in  which 
that  positive  provision  shall  have  been  made,  that  specific 
disability  clearly  created,  and  the  consequences  of  it  declar- 
ed; or,  if  there  be  no  such  statute,  the  custom  of  parliament 
must  then  be  referred  to,  and  some  case  or  cases*,  strictlv 
in  point,  must  be  produced,  with  the  decision  of  the  court 
upon  them;  for  I  readilv  admit  that  the  custom  of  parlia- 
ment, once  clearly  proved,  is  equally  binding  with  the  com- 
mon and  statute  law. 

The  consideration  of  what  may  be  reasonable  or  unreason- 
able makes  no  part  of  this  question.  We  are  enquiring  what 
the  law  is,  not  what  it  ought  to  be.  Reason  may  be  applied 
to  shew  the  impropriety  or  expedience  of  a  law,  but  we  must 
have  either  statute  or  precedent  to  prove  the  existence  of  it. 
At  the  same  time  I  do  not  mean  to  admit  that  the  late  reso- 
lution of  the  House  of  Commons  is  defensible  on  general 

*  Precedents,  in  opposition  to  principles,  have  little  weight  with  J  unius; 
but  he  thought  it  necessary  to  meet  the  ministry,  upon  their  own  groun 


JUNIUS.  HI 

principles  of  reason,  any  more  than  in  law.  This  is  not  the 
hinge  on  which  the  debate  turns. 

Supposing,  therefore,  that  I  have  laid  down  an  accurate 
state  of  the  question,  I  will  venture  to  affirm,  l3t,  That  there 
is  no  statute  existing,  by  which  that  specific  disability,  which 
we  speak  of,  is  created.  If  there  be,  let  it  be  produced.  The 
argument  will  then  be  at  an  end. 

2dly,  That  there  is  no  precedent  in  all  the  proceedings  of 
the  House  of  Commons  which  comes  entirely  home  to  the 
present  case,  viz.  "  where  an  expelled  member  has  been  re- 
turned again,  and  another  candidate,  with  an  inferior  num- 
ber of  votes,  has  been  declared  the  sitting  member."  If  there 
be  such  a  precedent,  let  it  be  given  to  us  plainly,  and  I  am 
sure  it  will  have  more  weight  than  all  the  cunning  arguments 
which  have  been  drawn  from  inferences  and  probabilities. 

The  ministry,  in  that  laborious  pamphlet,  which,  I  pre- 
sume, contains  the  whole  strength  of  the  party,  have  declar- 
ed*, "  That  Mr.  Walpole'sf  was  the  first  and  only  instance, 
in  which  the  electors  of  any  county  or  borough  had  returned 
a  person  expelled  to  serve  in  the  same  parliament."  It  is  not 
possible  to  conceive  a  case  more  exactly  in  point.  Mr.  Wal- 
pole  was  expelled,  and  having  a  majority  of  votes  at  the 

*  Case  of  the  Middlesex  election  considered,  page  38. 

j-  This  fact  occurred  while  Mr.  Wulpole  was  in  an  inferior  capacity  to 
that  in  which  he  afterwards  appeared  so  conspicuously  as  prime  minister 
of  George  I.  and  George  II.  At  the  period  in  question,  the  Tories  having 
obtained  a  majority  in  parliament,  expelled  him  for  the  crime  of  having 
accepted  profits  upon  a  military  contract,  while  secretary  at  war,  and  at 
the  same  time  possessed  influence  enough  to  have  him  committed  to  the 
Tower.  He  was  member  for  Lynn  Regis,  the  burgesses  of  which  borough 
were  warmly  attached  to  him.  It  was  for  this  borough  he  had  been  return- 
ed at  an  early  period  of  his  life,  by  which  he  was  enabled,  while  a  young 
politician,  to  head  the  Whig  party  against  St.  John,  afterwards  Lord  Bo- 
lingbroke,  who  took  a  leading  part  in  the  Tory  administration  of  Harley. 

From  the  disgrace  into  which  he  was  hereby  for  a  long  time  plunged, 
he  was  at  length  relieved  by  the  failure  of  the  minister's  favourite  expe- 
dient of  the  South  Sea  incorporation,  and  the  extreme  unpopularity  in 
which  he  was  consequently  involved.  Walpole  now  triumphed  upon  the 
ruin  of  his  rival;  became  prime  minister,  retained  the  post  through  the 
whole  of  the  existing  and  part  of  the  npxt  reign,  and  for  his  services  was 
created  Earl  of  Orford.  Edit. 


112  LETTERS  OF 

next  election,  was  returned  again.  The  friends  of  Mr.  Tay- 
lor, a  candidate  set  up  by  the  ministry,  petitioned  the  House 
that  he  might  be  the  sitting  member*.  Thus  far  the  circum- 
stances tally  exactly,  except  that  our  House  of  Commons 
saved  Mr.  Luttrell  the  trouble  of  petitioning.  The  point  of 
law  however  was  the  same.  It  came  regularly  before  the 
House,  and  it  was  their  business  to  determine  upon  it.  They 
did  determine  it,  for  they  declared  Mr.  Taylor  not  duly 
elected.  If  it  be  said  that  they  meant  this  resolution  as  mat- 
ter of  favour  and  indulgence  to  the  borough,  which  had  re- 
torted Mr.  Walpole  upon  them,  in  order  that  the  burgesses, 
knowing  what  the  law  was,  might  correct  their  error,  I 
answer, 

I.  That  it  is  a  strange  way  of  arguing,  to  oppose  a  suppo- 
sition, which  no  man  can  prove,  to  a  fact  which  proves  itself. 

*  The  following1  are  the  particulars  of  this  case  as  extracted  from  the 
journals  of  the  House  of  Commons: 

"  On  the  23  of  February  1711,  a  petition  of  the  freemen  and  free-burgh- 
ers of  the  borough  of  King's  Lynn,  in  the  county  of  Norfolk,  was  present- 
ed to  the  House,  and  read;  setting  forth,  that  Monday  the  eleventh  of  Fe- 
bruary last,  being  appointed  for  chusinga  member  to  serve  in  parliament 
for  this  borough,  in  the  room  of  Robert  Walpole,  Esq.  expelled  this  House, 
Samuel  Taylor,  Esq.  ivas  elected  their  burgess;  but  John  Bagg,  present 
mayor  of  the  said  borough,  refused  to  return  the  said  Samuel  Tuulor,  though 
required  so  to  do;  and  returned  the  said  Robert  Wulp  >le,  though  expelled 
this  House,  and  then  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower,  and  praying  the  considera- 
tion of  the  House. 

*  March  6th.  The  order  of  the  day  being  read  of  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  merits  of  the  petition  of  the  freemen  and  free-burghers  of  the 
borough  of  King's  Lynn  in  the  county  of  Norfolk,  and  a  motion  being 
made  that  counsel  be  called  in,  upon  a  division,  it  was  resolved  in  the  ne- 
gative: Tellers  for  the  yeas  Sir  Charles  Turner,  Mr.  Pulteney,  127.  Tel- 
lers for  the  noes,  Sir  Simeon  Stuart,  Mr  Foster,  212. — A  motion  being 
made,  and  the  question  put,  that  Robert  Walpole,  Esq.  having  been,  this 
session  of  parliament  committed  a  prisoner  to  the  Tower  of  London,  and 
expelled  this  House  for  an  high  breach  of  trust  in  the  execution  of  his 
office,  and  notorious  corruption,  when  secretary  at  war,  was,  and  is,  inca- 
pable of  being  elected  a  member  to  serve  in  this  present  parliament,  it  was 
resolved,  upon  a  division,  in  the  affirmative  Then  a  motion  being  made, 
and  the  question  put,  that  Samuel  Taylor,  Esq.  is  duly  elected  a  burgess 
to  serve  in  the  present  parliament  for  the  borough  of  King's  Lynn  in  the 
county  of  Norfolk,  it  passed  in  the  negative.  Resolved,  that  the  late  elec- 
tion of  a  burgess  to  serve  in  the  present  parliament  for  the  said  borough  of 
King's  Lynn,  in  the  county  of  Norfolk,  is  a  void  election."  Edi  i . 


JUNIUS.  113 

II.  That  if  this  were  the  intention  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, it  must  have  defeated  itself.  The  burgesses  of  Lynn 
could  never  have  known  their  error,  much  less  could  they 
have  corrected  it,  by  any  instruction  they  received  from  the 
proceedings  of  the  House  of  Commons.  They  might  perhaps 
have  foreseen,  that,  if  they  returned  Mr.  Walpole  again,  he 
would  again  be  rejected;  but  they  never  could  infer,  from  a 
resolution  by  which  the  candidate  with  the  fewest  votes  was 
declared  not  duly  elected,  that,  at  a  future  election,  and  in 
similar  circumstances,  the  House  of  Commons  would  reverse 
their  resolution,  and  receive  the  same  candidate  as  duly 
elected,  whom  they  had  before  rejected. 

This  indeed  would  have  been  a  most  extraordinary  way 
of  declaring  the  law  of  parliament,  and  what  I  presume  no 
man,  whose  understanding  is  not  at  cross-purposes  with 
itself,  could  possibly  understand. 

If,  in  a  case  of  this  importance,  I  thought  myself  at  liberty 
to  argue  from  suppositions  rather  than  trom  facts,  I  think  the 
probability,  in  this  instance,  is  directly  the  reverse  of  what 
the  ministry  affirm;  and  that  it  is  much  more  likely  that  the 
House  of  Commons  at  that  time  would  rather  have  strained 
a  point  in  favour  of  Mr.  Taylor,  than  that  they  would  have 
violated  the  law  of  parliament,  and  robbed  Mr.  Taylor  of  a 
right  legally  vested  in  him,  to  gratify  a  refractory  borough, 
which,  in  defiance  of  them,  had  returned  a  person  branded 
with  the  strongest  mark  of  the  displeasure  of  the  House. 

But  really,  Sir,  this  way  of  talking,  for  I  cannot  call  it  ar- 
gument, is  a  mockery  of  the  common  understanding  of  the 
nation,  too  gross  to  be  endured.  Our  dearest  interests  are  at 
stake.  An  attempt  has  been  made,  not  merely  to  rob  a  single 
county  of  its  rights,  but,  by  inevitable  consequence,  to  alter 
the  constitution  of  the  House  of  Commons.  This  fatal  at- 
tempt has  succeeded,  and  stands  as  a  precedent,  recorded 
for  ever*.  If  the  ministry  are  unable  to  defend  their  cause 
by  fair  argument,  founded  on  facts,  let  them  spare  us  at  least 

*  See  the  Editor's  note  to  Letter  xlvi.  in  which  the  reader  will  find  a 
particular  account  of  the  steps  taken  by  Mr.  Wilkes  to  procure  the  erasure 
of  these  proceedings  from  the  journals  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Edit. 

Vol.  I.  P 


114  LETTERS  OF 

the  mortification  of  being  amused  and  deluded  like  children. 
I  believe  there  is  yet  a  spirit  of  resistance  in  this  country, 
which  will  not  submit  to  be  oppressed;  but  I  am  sure  there 
is  a  fund  of  good  sense  in  this  country,  which  cannot  be 
deceived. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XVII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF   THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  1  August,  1769. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  for  Junius  to  take  the  trouble  of 

answering  your  correspondent  G.  A.  or  the  quotation  from 

a  speech  without  doors,  published  in  your  paper  of  the  28th 

of  last  month*.  The  speech  appeared  before  Junius's  letter, 

*  It  seems  but  fair  that  the  reader  should  be  put  into  possession  of  both 
the  papers  which  it  is  the  object  of  the  present  letter  to  oppose;  but  more 
especially  the  latter,  which  was  written  by  Dr.  Blackstone,  and  a  passage 
from  another  part  of  which  Junius,  in  p.  144  of  this  volume,  contrasts 
with  one  from  the  Commentaries.  The  Editor  has  therefore  extracted 
them  from  the  journal  referred  to. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC    ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 
I  have  perused,  with  all  due  attention,  the  letter  of  Junius,  inserted 
in  your  paper  of  the  19th  nst.  I  perfectly  agree  with  him,  that  a  great  deal 
of  useless  argument  might  have  been  saved  in  the  political  contest  which 
has  arisen  upon  the  expulsion  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  and  the  subsequent  appoint- 
ment of  Mr.  Luttrell,  if  the  question  had  been  once  stated  with  precision 
to  the  satisfaction  of  each  party  Yet  after  all  the  ingenious  pains  Junius 
has  taken,  I  much  doubt  whether  the  question,  as  he  has  thought  fit  to 
state  it,  will  at  all  satisfy  more  than  one  party.  The  question,  as  he  has 
given  it,  is  "  Whether  or  no  it  be  the  known  established  law  of  parliament, 
that  the  expulsion  of  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  of  itself  creates 
in  him  such  an  incapacity  of  being  re-elected,  that  at  a  subsequent  elec- 
tion, any  votes  given  to  him  are  null  and  void,  and  that  any  other  candidate 
who,  except  the  person  expelled,  has  the  greatest  number  of  votes,  ought 
to  be  the  sitting  member?"  Junius  having  thus  formed  his  question,  en- 
tertains the  reader  witli  a  few  spirited  flourishes,  not  perhaps  directly  ad 
rem;  and  then  assorts,  what  probably  the  party  he  opposes  will  not  deny, 
viz  "  That  to  support  the  affirmative  fairly,  it  will  either  be  necessary  to 
produce  some  statute,  in  which  that  positive  provision  shall  have  been 
made,  that  specific  disability  clearly  created,  and  the  consequences  of  it 

declared; 


JUNIUS.  115 

and  as  the  author  seems  to  consider  the  great  proposition,  on 
which  all  his  argumem  depends,  viz.  that  Mr.  Wilkes  was 
under  that  known  legal  incapacity,  of  which  Junius  speaks , 
as  a  point  granted,  his  speech  is,  in  no  shape,  an  answer  to 
Junius,  for  this  is  the  very  question  in  debate. 

declared;  or  if  there  be  no  such  statute,  the  custom  of  parliament  must 
then  be  referred  to,  and  some  case,  or  cases,  strictly  in  point,  must  be  pro- 
duced, with  the  decision  of  the  court  upon  them  "  Suppose,  for  argu- 
ment's sake,  that  no  such  statute,  no  such  custom  of  parliament,  no  such 
case  in  point  can  be  produced,  does  it  therefore  follow  that  the  determina- 
tion of  the  House  of  Commons,  in  regard  to  Mr.  Wilkes  and  Mr.  Luttrell, 
was  wrong?  Have  not  the  members  of  the  present  House  as  good  aright 
to  establish  a  precedent,  as  the  members  of  any  antecedent  house  ever 
had?  Junius  admits  a  right  in  the  house  to  expel.  But  was  there  not  a 
time  prior  to  all  expulsion?  and  was  the  first  expulsion  therefore  wrong? 
Was  there  not  a  time  prior  to  every  other  precedent  in  the  Journals  of  the 
House?  But  was  every  such,  or  any  such  precedent  therefore  wrong?  Are 
things  wrong  merely  because  they  were  never  done  before?  Or  do  wrong 
things  become  right  by  mere  dint  of  repetition?  Should  Junius  think  fit 
to  answer  these  questions,  I  may  be  induced  perhaps  to  enlarge  upon  the 
subject. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  humble  servant, 
July  26.  G.  A- 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  Jidy  28, 1769. 

In  answer  to  the  arguments  and  observations  of  your  correspondent 
Junius  (relating  to  the  vote  of  the  9th  of  May,  in  favour  of  Colonel  Lut- 
trell) I  send  you  the  following  extract  from  a  pamphlet  just  published, 
which  please  to  insert  as  soon  as  you  can,  and  thereby  oblige, 

AN  OLD  CORRESPONDENT. 

A  speech  without  doors  upon  the  subject  of  a  vote  given  on  the  9th  day  of 
May,  1769. 

"  Your  question  I  will  answer,  having  first  premised,  that  if  you  are  sa- 
tisfied we  did  right  in  setting  aside  Mr.  Wilkes's  election,  I  cannot  believe 
it  will  be  a  very  difficult  task  to  convince  you  that  the  admitting  of  Mr. 
Luttrell  was  the  unavoidable  consequence.  '  No:  (say  you)  for  surely  you 
might  have  declared  it  a  void  election.  Why  go  greater  lengths  than  in 
former  times,  even  the  most  heated  and  violent,  it  was  ever  thought  pro- 
per to  go?  Or  upon  what  ground,  either  of  reason  or  authority,  can  you 
justify  the  vote  you  gave,  that  Mr.  Luttrell,  who  certainly  had  not  the 
majority,  was  duly  elected?'  The  question  you  have  a  right  to  put  to  me, 
and  I  mean  to  give  it  a  direct  answer. 

"  Now 


116  LETTERS  Oi 

As  to  G.  A.  I  observe  first,  that  if  he  did  not  admit  ot 
Junius's  state  of  the  question,  he  should  have  shewn  the  fal- 
lacy of  it,  or  given  us  a  more  exact  one; — secondly,  that,  con- 
sidering the  many  hours  and   days,  which  the  ministry  and 

"  Now  the  principle  upon  which  I  voted  was  this,  that  in  all  cases  of 
election  by  a  majority  of  votes,  wherever  the  candidate  for  whom  the  most 
votes  are  given,  appears  to  have  been,  at  the  time  of  the  election,  under  a 
hwivn  legal  incapacity,  the  person  who  had  the  next  greatest  number  of 
votes  ought  to  be  considered  as  the  person  duly  elected.  And  this,  as  a  ge- 
neral principle,  I  take  to  be  altogether  uncontrovertible.  We  may  differ  in 
our  ways  of  expressing  the  principle,  or  of  explaining  the  grounds  of  it: 
some  chusing  to  state  it,  that  the  electors  voting  for  such  incapable  per- 
son, do,  for  that  time,  forfeit  their  right  of  voting;  others,  that  their  votes 
are  thrown  away;  and  others,  that  votes  for  a  person  not  legally  capable, 
are  not  legal  votes.  But  in  whatever  way  we  assign  the  ground  of  the 
rule,  the  result  and  conclusion  is  still  the  same,  that,  in  every  such  case, 
the  election  of  the  capable  person  by  the  inferior  number  of  votes,  is  a  good 
and  valid  election. 

"  Nor  is  this  rule,  founded  as  it  is  in  sound  sense  and  public  necessity, 
to  be  put  out  of  countenance  by  a  little  ingenious  sophistry,  playing  upon 
the  ambiguity  of  certain  undefined  terms,  taunting  us  with  the  reproach  of 
elections  by  a  minority,  of  inverting  the  rules  of  arithmetic,  and  the  like. 
Not  even  the  sacredness  of  the  rights  of  the  electors  can  stand  against  its 
authority;  for  sacred  as  those  rights  ought  ever  to  be  held,  the  exercise  of 
them,  as  well  as  of  all  the  other  rights  of  individuals,  must  ever  be  con- 
fined within  such  bounds,  and  governed  by  such  rules,  as  are  consistent 
with  the  attainment  of  the  great  public  ends  for  which  they  were  estab- 
lished. But  could  any  thing  be  more  preposterous  than  if,  while  you  are 
securing  to  individuals  the  right  they  have  to  take  part  in  determining  who 
shall  be  appointed  to  discharge  the  several  public  offices  and  trusts,  no 
care  should  be  taken  that  the  public,  in  all  events,  may  be  secure  of  having 
any  persons  appointed  at  all?  Yet  to  this  inconvenience,  the  public  must  be 
perpetually  exposed,  if  the  rule  were  to  be  strictly  and  invariably  followed, 
that  nothing  but  a  majority  of  the  electors  could  ever  make  a  good  election. 
That  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  intitled  to  have  voice  in  the  election, 
is  not  necessary,  will  be  readily  admitted;  for  at  that  rate,  the  absence  of 
one  half  of  the  electors  might  defeat  the  possibility  of  any  election  at  all. 
Neither  is  it  necessary,  in  order  to  a  candidate's  being  duly  elected, 
that  he  should  have  the  votes  of  more  than  one  half  of  the  electors  present; 
since,  if  it  were,  diversity  of  inclinations  among  the  electors,  and  the  putting 
up  of  three  candidates,  might  as  completely  frustrate  all  possibility  of 
supplying  the  vacancy,  as  the  absence  of  one  half  of  the  electors  would  in 
the  former  case.  Accordingly,  therefore,  we  constantly  see,  that  wher- 
ever there  are  more  than  two  candidates  for  one  vacancy,  the  election  is 
determined,  not  so  properly  b\  a  majority,  as  by  a  plurality  of  voices;  and 
,  he  candidate,  who  has  more  voices  than  any  one  of  his  competitors,  al- 
though 


JUNIUS.  117 

their  advocates  have  wasted,  in  public  debate,  in  compiling 
large  quartos,  and  collecting  innumerable  precedents,  ex- 
pressh  to  prove  that  the  late  proceedings  of  the  House  of 
Commons  are  warranted  by  the  law,  custom,  and  practice  of 
parliament,  it  is  rather  an  extraordinary  supposition,  to  be 
made  by  one  of  their  own  party,  even  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, that  no  such  statute,  no  such  custom  of  parliament,  no 
such  case  in  point  can  be  produced.  G.  A.  may  however 
make  the  supposition  with  safety.  It  contains  nothing,  but 
literally  the  fact,  except  that  there  is  a  case  exactly  in  point, 

though  fewer  than  one  half  of  the  electors  present,  is  always  determined 
to  he  well  and  duly  elected;  there  being  indeed  no  other  method  allowed 
by  the  constitution,  of  voting  against  one  candidate,  but  by  voting  for  ano- 
ther; nor  any  liberty  of  declaring  whom  I  would  prefer  in  the  second  place, 
in  case  my  first  vote  should  prove  ineffectual;  either  of  which  allowances 
might  prevent  any  election  being  made. 

"  Thus  far  then  we  are  guarded  against  the  public  service  being  disap- 
pointed, either  by  the  remissness  of  the  electors  in  absenting  themselves 
from  the  election,  or  by  such  a  diversity  of  opinions  among  the  electors 
present,  as  though  innocent  in  itself,  would  yet  be  of  fatal  consequence  to 
the  public,  should  it  be  suffered  to  operate  so  far  as  to  prevent  any  effec- 
tual election  from  taking  place.  But  much  in  vain  have  these  rules  been 
established,  if  it  is  still  to  be  in  the  power  of  the  same  number  of  electors, 
by  a  little  management,  to  effect  the  same  purpose,  and  put  an  effectual 
bar  to  all  possibility  of  a  valid  election.  Had  they,  by  staying  away,  de- 
clared that  they  would  take  no  part  in  supplying  the  vacancy,  their  fellow 
electors,  who  chose  to  exercise  their  franchise,  and  upon  whom,  in  that 
case,  the  complete  right  would  have  devolved,  might  have  exercised  then- 
right  accordingly,  and  the  public  service  would  have  been  provided  for. 
But  shall  they  be  allowed  to  come,  and  by  declaring  that  they  will  vote 
against  one  candidate,  but  for  no  other,  or  by  voting  for  a  person  whom 
they  know  to  be  incapable  of  holding  the  office,  as  truly,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  deprive  their  fellows  of  their  right,  and  the  public  of  its  due,  as 
if,  instead  of  coming,  they  had  only  sent  a  prohibition  of  proceeding  to  any 
election  till  it  should  be  their  good  pleasure  to  suffer  one?  Against  such  a 
mockery  of  the  public  authority  common  sense  reclaims,  and  has  there- 
fore provided  against  this  abuse,  by  pointing  out  this  farther  qualification 
of  the  rule  by  which  elections  are  to  be  decided.  That,  as  the  electors  who 
give  no  vote  at  all,  have  no  power  of  excluding  any  candidate  for  whom 
other  electors  do  vote,  so  those  who  give  their  votes  for  a  person  whom 
they  know  to  be  by  law  incapable,  are  to  be  considered  exactly  on  the 
same  footing  as  if  they  gave  no  votes  at  all  ?  Not  to  give  any  vote,  to  de- 
clare I  vote  for  nobody,  or  to  vote  for  the  Great  Mogul,  must  undoubtedly 
have  the  same  effect. 

"  Thus 


118  LETTERS  OF 

with  a  decision  of  the  House,  diametrically  opposite  to  that 
which  the  present  House  of  Commons  came  to  in  favour  of 
Mr.  Luttrell. 

The  ministry  now  begin  to  be  ashamed  of  the  weakness 
of  their  cause,  and,  as  it  usually  happens  with  falsehood,  are 
driven  to  the  necessity  of  shifting  their  ground,  and  chang- 
ing their  whole  defence.  At  first  we  were  sold  that  nothing 
could  be  clearer  than  that  the  proceedings  of  the  House  of 
Commons  were  justified  by  the  known  law  and  uniform  cus- 
tom of  parliament.  But  now  it  seems,  if  there  be  no  law,  the 
House  of  Commons  have  a  right  to  make  one,  and  if  there 
be  no  precedent,  they  have  a  right  to  create  the  first; — for 
this,  I  presume,  is  the  amount  of  the  questions  proposed  to 
Junius.  If  your  correspondent  had  been  at  all  versed  in  the 
law  of  parliament,  or  generally  in  the  laws  of  this  country,  he 
would  have  seen  that  this  defence  is  as  weak  and  false  as  the 
former. 

The  privileges  of  either  House  of  Parliament,  it  is  true, 
are  indefinite,  that  is,  they  have  not  been  described  or  laid 
down  in  any  one  code  or  declaration  whatsoever;  but  when- 

"Thus  then  it  appeared  to  me,  that  the  general  rule,  that  in  case  of  a 
fawwn  legal  incapacity  in  the  person  having  the  majority  of  voices,  the  capa- 
ble person  next  upon  the  poll,  although  chosen  by  a  minority,  is  duly  elect- 
ed, is  consonant  to  reason,  is  the  dictate  of  common  sense. 

"  That  it  had  also  the  sanction  of  authority,  I  was  as  clearly  convinced. 
The  practice  of  the  courts  of  law,  in  such  cases,  seems  not  to  be  disputed; 
they  have,  by  repeated  decisions,  established  the  principle. 

"  Upon  these  grounds,  therefore,  both  of  reason  and  authority,  I  not 
only  thought  myself  fully  justified  in  giving  my  vote,  that  Mr.  Luttrell  was 
duly  elected,  but  in  truth  I  could  not  think  myself  at  liberty  to  vote  other- 
wise, being  convinced,  that  as,  on  the  one  hand,  by  so  voting  I  should  do 
no  wrong  to  the  1143  freeholders  of  Middlesex,  who,  for  the  chance  of 
being  able  to  overbear  the  authority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  had 
adjudged  Mr.  Wilkes  to  be  incapable,  had  chosen  to  forego  their  right 
of  taking  part  in  the  nomination  of  a  capable  person  in  his  room;  so,  by  a 
contrary  decision,  I  should  have  done  a  most  manifest  injustice  to  Mr.  Lut- 
trell, and  to  the  296  freeholders  who  voted  for  him;  and  who,  in  failure  of  a 
nomination  by  an  equal  number  of  freeholders  of  any  other  capable  candidate, 
had,  upon  every  principle  of  reason,  and  every  rule  of  law,  as  well  as  ac- 
cording to  the  uniform  us;;ge  of  parliament,  conferred  upon  him  a  clear  title 
to  sit  as  one  of  the  representatives  for  the  county  of  Middlesex"     Edit. 


JUNIUS.  119 

ever  a  question  of  privilege  has  arisen,  it  has  invariably  been 
disputed  or  maintained  upon  the  footing  of  precedents  alone*. 
In  the  course  of  the  proceedings  upon  the  Aylesbury  elec- 
tion, the  House  of  Lords  resolved,  "  That  neither  House  of 
Parliament  had  any  power,  by  any  vote  or  declaration,  to 
create  to  themselves  any  new  privilege  that  was  not  warrant- 
ed by  the  known  laws  and  customs  of  parliament."  And  to 
this  rule  the  House  of  Commons,  though  otherwise  they  had 
acted  in  a  very  arbitrary  manner,  gave  their  assent,  for  they 
affirmed  that  they  had  guided  themselves  by  it,  in  asserting 
their  privileges. — Now,  Sir,  if  this  be  true  with  respect  to 
matters  of  privilege,  in  which  the  House  of  Commons,  in- 
dividually and  as  a  body,  are  principally  concerned,  how 
much  more  strongly  will  it  hold  against  any  pretended 
power  in  that  House,  to  create  or  declare  a  new  law,  by  which 
not  only  the  rights  of  the  House  over  their  own  member, 
and  those  of  the  member  himself  are  concluded,  but  also 
those  of  a  third  and  separate  party,  I  mean  the  freeholders 
of  the  kingdom.  To  do  justice  to  the  ministry,  they  have 
not  yet  pretended  that  any  one  or  any  two  of  the  three  estates 
have  power  to  make  a  new  law,  without  the  concurrence  of 
the  third.  They  know  that  a  man  who  maintains  such  a  doc- 
trine, is  liable,  by  statute,  to  the  heaviest  penalties.  They  do 
not  acknowledge  that  the  House  of  Commons  have  assumed 
a  new  privilege,  or  declared  a  new  law. — On  the  contrarv, 
they  affirm  that  their  proceedings  have  been  strictly  conform- 
able to  and  founded  upon  the  ancient  law  and  custom  of  par- 
liament. Thus  therefore  the  question  returns  to  the  point, 
at  which  Junius  had  fixed  it,  viz.  Whether  or  no  this  be  the 
law  of  parliament.  If  it  be  not,  the  House  of  Commons  had 
no  legal  authority  to  establish  the  precedent;  and  the  prece- 
dent itself  is  a  mere  fact,  without  any  proof  of  right  what- 
soever. 

Your  correspondent  concludes  with  a  question  of  the  sim- 
plest nature:  Must  a  thing  be  wrongs  because  it  has  never 


no  prece 
right 


This  is  still  meeting  the  ministry  upon  their  own  ground;  for,  in  truth 
recedents  will  support  either  natural  injustice,  or  violation  of  positive 


120  LETTERS  OF 

been  done  before?  No.  But  admitting  it  were  proper  to  be 
done,  that  alone  does  not  convey  an  authority  to  do  it.  As 
to  the  present  case,  1  hope  I  shall  never  see  the  time,  when 
not  only  a  single  person,  but  a  whole  county,  and  in  effect 
the  entire  collective  body  of  the  people  may  again  be  robbed 
of  their  birthright  by  a  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons.  But 
if,  for  reasons  which  I  am  unable  to  comprehend,  it  be  neces- 
sary to  trust  that  House  with  a  power  so  exorbitant  and  so 
unconstitutional,  at  least  let  it  be  given  to  them  by  an  act  of 
the  legislature. 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XVIII. 

TO    DR.   WILLIAM    BLACKSTONE,    SOLICITOR  GENERAL  TO  HER. 
MAJESTY. 
Sir,  29  July,  If  69. 

I  shall  make  you  no  apology  for  considering  a  certain 
pamphlet,  in  which  your  late  conduct  is  defended,  as  written 
by  yourself*.  The  personal  interest,  the  personal  resent- 
ments, and  above  all,  that  wounded  spirit,  unaccustomed  to 
reproach,  and  I  hope  not  frequently  conscious  of  deserving 

*  This  was  at  last  admitted  by  the  friends  of  the  Solicitor  General.  The 
pamphlet  was  entitled,  "  An  answer  to  the  question  stated;"  and  was  a 
reply  to  a  pamphlet  from  Sir  William  Meredith,  one  of  the  most  active 
members  of  parliament  of  the  Whig  party,  entitled,  "  The  question 
stated,"  in  reference  to  the  adjudication  of  Wilkes's  incapacity  to  sit  hi 
parliament  after  his  last  election;  in  the  course  of  which  also,  the  incon- 
sistency of  opinion  between  that  delivered  by  the  Solicitor  General  in  hi* 
Commentaries,  and  that  on  the  point  in  question  w:>s  severely  animad- 
verted upon. 

The  press  was  overwhelmed  with  tracts  on  this  dispute  from  both  sides. 
Of  these,  the  chief,  independently  of  Sir  William  Meredith's,  and  the  re- 
ply to  it  by  Sir  William  Blac.kstone,  were  "  The  case  of  the  last  election 
for  the  county  of  Middlesex  considered,"  attributed  to  Mr.  Dyson,  who 
was  nicknamed,  by  his  opponents,  Mungo:  "  Serious  Considerations;" 
"  Mungo  on  the  use  of  Quotations;"  "Mango's  case  considered;"  "Letter 
to  Junius;"  "  Postscript  to  Junius,"  published  in  a  subsequent  edition  to 
Sir  William  Blackstone's  reply,  and  "  The  False  Alarm,"  written  by  Doc- 
tor Johnson.  Of  all  those  some  incidental  notice  is  taken  in  the  course  of 
♦he  volumes  before  us.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  121 

it,  are  signals  which  betray  the  author  to  us  as  plainly  as  if 
your  name  were  in  the  title-page-.  You  appeal  to  the  public 
in  defence  of  your  reputation.  We  hold  it,  Sir,  that  an  injury 
offered  to  an  individual  is  interesting  to  society.  On  this 
principle  the  people  of  England  made  common  cause  with  Mr. 
Wilkes.  On  this  principle,  if  you  are  injured,  they  will  join  in 
your  resentment.  I  shall  not  follow  you  through  the  insipid 
form  of  a  third  perso  1,  but  address  myself  to  you  directly* 

You  seem  to  think  the  channel  of  a  pamphlet  more  re- 
spectable and  better  suited  to  the  dignity  of  your  cause,  than 
that  of  a  news-paper.  Be  it  so.  Yet  if  news-papers  are  scur- 
rilous, you  must  confess  they  are  impartial.  Thev  give  us, 
without  any  apparent  preference,  the  wit  and  argument  of 
the  ministry,  as  well  as  the  abusive  dulness  of  the  opposi- 
tion. The  scales  are  equally  poised.  It  is  not  the  printers 
fault  if  the  greater  weight  inclines  the  balance. 

Your  pamphlet  then  is  divided  into  an  attack  upon  Mr. 
Grenville's  character,  and  a  defence  of  your  own.  It  would 
have  been  more  consistent  perhaps  with  your  professed  in- 
tentions, to  have  confined  yourself  to  the  last.  But  anger  has 
some  claim  to  indulgence,  and  railing  is  usually  a  relief  to 
the  mind.  I  hope  you  have  found  benefit  from  the  experi- 
ment. It  is  not  my  design  to  enter  into  a  formal  vindicatioa 
of  Mr.  Grenville,  upon  his  own  principles.  I  have  neither 
the  honour  of  being  personally  known  to  him*,  nor  do  I 
pretend  to  be  completely  master  of  all  the  facts.  I  need  not 
run  the  risk  of  doing  an  injustice  to  his  opinions,  or  to  his 
conduct,  when  your  pamphlet  alone  carries,  upon  the  face  of 
it,  a  full  vindication  of  both. 

Your  first  reflection  is,  that   Mr.  Grenvillef  was,  of  all 

*  This,  as  already  observed  in  the  Preliminary  Essay,  is  a  truly  singular 
assertion  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  fact,  that  Mr.  Grenville,  of 
all  the  political  characters  of  the  day,  appears  to  have  been  our  author's 
favourite.  He  voluntarily  omits  every  opportunity  of  censuring  him,  and 
readily  embraces  every  occasion  of  defending  and  extolling  his  conduct 
and  principles.  Edit. 

f  Mr.  Grenville  hud  quoted  a  passage  from  the  Doctor's  excellent  com- 
mentaries, which  directly  contradicted  the  doctrine  maintained  by  th'' 
Doctor  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Vol.  I.  Q 


122  LETTERS  OF 

men,  the  person,  who  should  not  have  complained  of  incon- 
sistence with  regard  to  Mr.  Wilkes*.  This,  Sir,  is  either  an 
unmeaning  sneer,  a  peevish  expression  of  resentment,  or,  if 
it  means  any  thing,  you  plainly  beg  the  question;  for  whether 
his  parliamentary  conduct  with  regard  to  Mr.  Wilkes  has 
or  has  not  been  inconsistent,  remains  yet  to  be  proved.  But 
it  seems  he  received  upon  the  spot  a  sufficient  chastisement 
for  exercising  so  unfairly]  his  talent  of  misrepresentation. 
You  are  a  lawyer,  Sir,  and  know  better  than  I  do,  upon  what 
particular  occasions  a  talent  for  misrepresentation  may  be 
fairly  exerted;  but  to  punish  a  man  a  second  time,  when  he 
has  been  once  sufficiently  chastised,  is  rather  too  severe.  It 
is  not  in  the  laws  of  England;  it  is  not  in  your  own  com- 
mentaries, nor  is  it  yet,  I  believe,  in  the  new  law  you  have 
revealed  to  the  House  of  Commons.  I  hope  this  doctrine 
has  no  existence  but  in  your  own  heart.  After  all.  Sir,  if 
you  had  consulted  that  sober  discretion,  which  you  seem  to 
oppose  with  tiiumph  to  the  honest  jollity  of  a  tavern,  it 
might  have  occurred  to  you  that,  although  you  could  have 
succeeded  in  fixing  a  charge  of  inconsistence  upon  Mr. 
Grenville,  it  would  not  have  tended  in  any  shape  to  excul- 
pate yourself. 

Your  next  insinuation,  that  Sir  William  Meredith  had 
hastily  adopted  the  false  glosses  of  his  new  ally,  is  of  the 

*  It  has  been  already  observed  that  the  opposition  to  Wilkes  commenced 
with  Mr.  George  Grenville,  who  advised  the  issue  of  the  General  War- 
rant. It  is  observed  also  in  the  same  note,  that  Grenville  afterwards  de- 
serted the  ministry,  and  attached  himself  strenuously  to  the  Whig  party. 
See  note  in  Vol.  I.  p.  105.  Upon  this  apparent  inconsistency  Junius 
shrewdly  remarks,  that  whatever  propriety  or  impropriety  there  might 
have  been  in  Mr.  Grenville's  opposing  Wilkes  personally — the  present 
question  has  nothing  to  do  with  it — as  he  now  supports  him  not  on  account 
of  his  personal  character,  but  as  the  instrument  of  the  people  at  large, 
whose  rights  and  privileges  the  ministry  have  grossly  violated  by  their 
conduct  towards  bim.  Edit. 

f  An  inaccurate  expression  in  the  pamphlet  alluded  to.  The  chastise- 
ment that  ensued  is  related  in  Vol.  I.  p.  127.  Blackstone  was  thunder- 
struck at  the  contradiction  pointed  out  by  Grenville,  and  was  incapable  of 
uttering  a  word  in  his  defence: — a  pause  ensued,  and  Mr.  Grenville  in- 
sultingly shook  his  head:  for  the  rest  see  the  page  as  above  referred  to. 
—Edit. 


JUNIUS.  123 

bame  sort  with  the  first.  It  conveys  a  sneer  as  little  worthy 
of  the  gravity  of  your  character,  as  it  is  useless  to  your  de- 
fence. It  is  of  little  moment  to  the  public  to  enquire,  by 
whom  the  charge  was  conceived,  or  by  whom  it  was  adopt- 
ed. The  onlv  question  we  ask  is,  whether  or  no  it  be  true. 
The  remainder  of  your  reflections  upon  Mr.  Grenville's 
conduct  destroy  themselves.  He  could  not  possibly  come 
prepared  to  traduce  your  integrity  to  the  House.  He  could 
not  foresee  that  you  would  even  speak  upon  the  question, 
much  less  could  he  foresee  that  you  would  maintain  a  direct 
contradiction  of  that  doctrine,  which  you  had  solemnly,  dis- 
interestedly, and  upon  soberest  reflection  delivered  to  the 
public.  He  came  armed  indeed  with  what  he  thought  a  re- 
spectable authority,  to  support  what  he  was  convinced  was 
the  cause  of  truth,  and  I  doubt  not  he  intended  to  give  you, 
in  the  course  of  the  debate,  an  honourable  and  public  testi- 
mony of  his  esteem.  Thinking  highly  of  his  abilities,  I  can- 
not however  allow  him  the  gift  of  divination.  As  to  what 
you  are  pleased  to  call  a  plan  coolly  formed  to  impose  upon 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  his  producing  it  without  pro- 
vocation at  midnight,  I  consider  it  as  the  language  of  pique 
and  invective,  therefore  unworthy  of  regard.  But,  Sir,  I  am 
sensible  I  have  followed  your  example  too  long,  and  wan- 
dered from  the  point. 

The  quotation  from  your  commentaries  is  matter  of  re- 
cord. It  can  neither  be  altered  by  your  friends,  nor  misre- 
presented by  your  enemies;  and  I  am  willing  10  take  your 
own  word  for  what  you  have  said  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
If  there  be  a  real  difference  between  what  you  have  written 
and  what  you  have  spoken,  you  confess  that  your  book  ought 
to  be  the  standard.  Now,  Sir,  if  words  mean  any  thing,  I 
apprehend  that,  when  a  long  enumeration  of  disqualifications 
(whether  by  statute  or  the  custom  of  parliament)  concludes 
with  these  general  comprehensive  words,  "but  subject  to 
these  restrictions  and  disqualifications,  every  subject  of  the 
realm  is  eligible  of  common  right,"  a  reader  of  plain  under- 
standing, must  of  course  rest  satisfied  that  no  species  of  dis- 
qualification  whatsoever  had  been  omitted.    The    known 


124  /  LETTERS  OF 

character  of  the  author,  and  the  apparent  accuracy  with 
■which  the  whole  work  is  compiled,  would  confirm  him  in 
his  opinion;  nor  could  he  possibly  form  any  other  judgment, 
without  looking  upon  your  commentaries  in  the  same  light 
in  which  you  consider  those  penal  laws,  which  though  not 
repealed,  are  fallen  into  disuse,  and  are  now  in  effect  a  snare 

TO  THE  UNWARY*. 

You  tell  us  indeed  that  it  was  not  part  of  your  plan  to  spe- 
cify any  temporary  incapacity,  and  that  you  could  not,  with- 
out a  spirit  of  prophecy,  have  specified  the  disability  of  a 
private  individual,  subsequent  to  the  period  at  which  you 
wrote.  What  your  plan  was  I  know  not;  but  what  it  should 
have  been,  in  order  to  complete  the  work  you  have  given  us, 
is  by  no  means  difficult  to  determine.  The  incapacity,  which 
you  call  temporary,  may  continue  seven  years;  and  though 
ynu  might  not  have  foreseen  the  particular  case  of  Mr. 
Wilkes,  you  might  and  should  have  foreseen  the  possibility 
of  such  a  case,  and  told  us  how  far  the  House  of  Commons 
were  authorized  to  proceed  in  it  by  the  law  and  custom  of 
parliament.  The  freeholders  of  Middlesex  would  then  have 
known  what  they  had  to  trust  to,  and  would  never  have  re- 
turned Mr.  Wilkes,  when  colonel  Luttrell  was  a  candidate 
against  him.  They  would  have  chosen  some  indifferent  per- 
son, rather  than  submit  to  be  represented  by  the  object  of 
their  contempt  and  detestation. 

Your  attempt  to  distinguish  between  disabilities,  which 
affect  whole  classes  of  men,  and  those  which  affect  indivi- 
duals only,  is  really  unworthy  of  your  understanding.  Your 
commentaries  had  taught  me  that,  although  the  instance,  in 
which  a  penal  law  is  exerted,  be  particular,  the  laws  them- 
selves are  general.  They  are  made  for  the  benefit  and  in- 
struction of  the  public,  though  the  penalty  falls  only  upon  an 

*  If,  in  stating  the  law  upon  any  point,  a  judge  deliberately  affirms  that 
he  has  included  every  case,  and  it  should  appear  that  he  has  purposely 
omitted  a  material  case,  he  does  in  effect  lay  a  snare  for  the  vmvary.— 
Author. 

This  last  part  of  the  sentence  is  a  quotation  artfully  selected  from 
Blackstone's  own  works,  and  turned  against  himself.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  125 

individual.  You  cannot  but  know,  Sir,  that  what  was  Mr. 
Wilkes's  case  yesterday  may  he  yours  or  mine  to-morrow, 
and  that  consequently  the  common  right  of  every  subject  of 
the  realm  is  invaded  by  it.  Profc ssing  therefore  to  treat  of 
the  constitution  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  of  the  laws 
and  customs  relative  to  that  constitution,  you  certainly  were 
guilty  of  a  most  unpardonable  omission  in  taking  no  notice 
of  a  right  and  privilege  of  the  House,  more  extraordinary 
and  more  arbitrary  than  all  the  others  they  possess  put  to- 
gether. If  the  expulsion  of  a  member,  not  under  any  other 
legal  disability,  of  itself  creates  in  him  an  incapacity  to  be 
re-elected,  I  see  a  ready  way  marked  out,  by  which  the  ma- 
jority may  at  any  time  remove  the  honestest  and  ablest  men 
"who  happen  to  be  in  opposition  to  them.  To  say  that  they 
will  not  make  this  extravagant  use  of  their  power,  would  be 
a  language  unfit  for  a  man  so  learned  in  the  laws  as  \ou  are. 
By  your  doetrine,  Sir,  they  have  the  power,  and  laws  you 
know  are  intended  to  guard  against  what  men  may  do,  not  to 
trust  to  what  they  will  do. 

Upon  the  whole,  Sir,  the  charge  against  you  is  of  a  plain, 
simple  nature:  It  appears  even  upon  the  face  of  your  own 
pamphlet.  On  the  contrary,  your  justification  of  yourself  is 
full  of  subtlety  and  refinement,  and  in  some  places  not  very 
intelligible.  If  I  were  personally  your  enemy,  I  should  dwell, 
with  a  malignant  pleasure,  upon  those  great  and  useful  qua- 
lifications, which  you  certainly  possess,  and  by  which  you 
once  acquired,  though  they  could  not  preserve  to  you  the 
respect  and  esteem  of  your  country.  I  should  enumerate  the 
honours  you  have  lost,  and  the  virtues  you  have  disgraced: 
but  having  no  private  resentments  to  gratify,  I  think  it  suf- 
ficient to  have  given  my  opinion  of  your  public  conduct, 
leaving  the  punishment  it  deserves  to  your  closet  and  to 
yourself. 

JUNIUS. 


126  LETTERS  OF 


LETTFR  XIX. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF    THE  PUBLIC    ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  14  August,  1769. 

A  correspondent  of  the  St.  James's  Chronicle  first  wil- 
fully misunderstands  Junius,  then  censures  him  for  a  bad 
reasoner*.  Junius  does  not  say  that  it  was  incumbent  upon 

*  The  following'  is  a  copy  of  the  letter  alluded  to: — 
For  the  St.  jfames's  Chronicle. 
TO  JUNIUS. 
Sin, 

Once  more  Mr.  Junius,  and  but  once,  let  me  address  a  few  words  to 
you  on  the  subject  of  your  Antiblackstonian  letter,  reminding'  you  at  the 
same  time,  that  I  am  no  formal  defender  of  the  celebrated  commentator 
(who  wants  no  such  defence),  but  that  it  is  my  sole  purpose  to  shew  that 
you  are  not  a  competent  reader  of  his  works,  or  that  you  have  wilfully  and 
malevolently  perverted  them. 

You  tell  Mr  Blackstone  that  "his  attempt  to  distinguish  between  dis- 
abilities that  affect  whole  classes  of  men,  and  those  which  affect  indivi- 
duals only,  is  really  unworthy  his  understanding."  And  yet,  Sir,  that  is  no 
new  distinction;  it  is  not  framed  and  invented  by  Mr.  Blackstone.  Private 
or  personal  laws,  whether  inflicting  penalties  and  disabilities,  or  conferring 
privileges  and  immunities,  on  the  particular  object  of  them,  and  distin- 
guished from  the  general  and  permanent  course  of  law,  have  been  known 
under  all  states,  and  under  every  legislation,  both  ancient  and  modern. 
They  are  enacted  pro  re  nata,  and  lose  all  their  force  as  soon  as  they  have 
operated  upon  the  individuals  marked  out  by  them.  But,  "you  have  been 
taught,  you  say,  (yet  surely  hot  from  the  commentaries)  that,  although  the 
instance  in  which  a  penal  law  is  exerted,  be  particular,  the  laws  them- 
selves (I  must  suppose  you  to  speak  of  the  laws  now  under  debate)  are 
general."  But,  before  you  could  write  thus,  what  daemon  of  confusion  must 
have  seized  your  noddle!  Were  the  votes  of  the  House,  by  which  Sir  Ro- 
bert Walpole,  Mr.  Ward,  and  many  others,  have  been  expelled,  and  the 
act  of  parliament  which  inflicted  a  perpetual  exclusion  on  the  S.  S.  Direc- 
tors, general  laws?  Was  the  vote  to  expel  Mr.  Wilkes  in  the  last  parlia- 
ment, a  general  law?  So  far  from  it,  that  its  force  was  quite  evaporated, 
and  it  could  not  operate  even  upon  him,  in  the  present.  Another  vote  of 
expulsion  was  necessary;  and  the  two  votes  put  together  could  no  more 
expel  Mr.  Townshend  and  Mr.  Sawbrid,c-e  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
than  the  decree  of  the  Roman  senate,  on  Cataline  and  the  rest  of  the  con- 
spirators, could  send  our  hero  and  his  whole  gang  to  Tyburn. 

Acts  of  attainder  come  under  the  same  description  of  personal,  tempo- 
vary  and  particular  laws;  and  that  I  may  help  you  the  better  to  understand 

this 


JUNIUS.  127 

Doctor  Blackstone  to  foresee  and  state  the  crimes,  for  which 
Mr.  Wilkes  was  expelled.  If,  by  a  spirit  of  prophecy,  he  had 
even  done  so,  it  would  have  been  nothing  to  the  purpose. 
The  question  is,  not  for  what  particular  offences  a  person 
may  be  expelled,  but  generally  whether  by  the  law  of  par- 
liament expulsion  alone  creates  a  disqualification.  If  the 
affirmative  be  the  law  of  parliament,  Doctor  Blackstone  might 
and  should  have  told  us  so.  The  question  is  not  confined  to 
this  or  that  particular  person,  but  forms  one  great  general 
branch  of  disqualification,  too  important  in  itself,  and  too 
extensive  in  its  consequences,  to  be  omitted  in  an  accurate 
work  expressly  treating  of  the  law  of  parliament. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  evidently  this.  Doctor  Black- 
stone, while  he  was  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
never  once  thought  of  his  commentaries,  until  the  contra- 
diction was  unexpectedly  urged,  and  stared  him  in  the  face. 
Instead  of  defending  himself  upon  the  spot,  he  sunk  under 
the  charge,  in  an  agony  of  confusion  and  despair.  It  is  well 
known  that  there  was  a  pause  of  some  minutes  in  the  House, 
from  a  general  expectation  that  the  Doctor  would  say  some- 
thing in  his  own  defence;  but  it  seems,  his  faculties  were 
too  much  overpowered  to  think  of  those  subtleties  and  re- 
finements, which  have  since  occurred  to  him.  It  was  then 
Mr.  Grenville  received  that  severe  chastisement,  which  the 
Doctor  mentions  with  so  much  triumph.  I  wish  the  honour- 
able gentleman,  instead  oj  shaking  his  head,  would  shake  a 
good  argument  out  of  it.  If  to  the  elegance,  novelty,  and  bit- 
terness of  this  ingenious  sarcasm,  we  add  the  natural  melo- 

this  whole  matter,  and  shew  you,  at  the  same  time,  the  accuracy  and  con- 
sistency of  Mr.  Blackstone,  I  shall  give  you  his  account  of  them:  (Comm. 
b.  iv.  p.  256.)  "  As  for  acts  of  parliament  to  attaint  particular  persons  of 
treason  and  felony,  or  to  inflict  pains  and  penalties,  beyond  or  contrary  to 
the  common  law,  to  serve  a  special  purpose,  /  speak  not  of  them,;  (mark 
that,  Junius,)  being-  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  new  laws,  made  pro  re 
nata,  and  by  no  means  an  execution  of  those  already  in  being."  I  shall  now 
take  my  leave  of  you,  having,  I  hope,  sufficiently  proved  to  Mr.  Baldwin'? 
I  readers,  in  the  instance  you  have  afforded  me,  how  prettily  sometimes  a 
man  may  write,  without  being  able  to  read. 

PUB  Lite 
Middle-Temple,  Avgutt  6,  1769  Escx. 


128  LETTERS  OF 

dy  of  the  amiable  Sir  Fletcher  Norton's  pipe,  we  shall  not 
be  surprised  that  Mr.  Grenville  was  unable  to  make  him  any 
reply. 

As  to  the  Doctor,  I  would  recommend  it  to  him  to  be 
quiet.  If  not,  he  may  perhaps  hear  again  from  Junius 
himself. 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 

Postscript*  to  a  Pamphlet  intitled,  *  An  Answer  to  the 
Question  stated.'  Supposed  to  be  written  by  Dr.  Black- 
stone,  Solicitor  to  the  Queen,  in  answer  to  Junius's 
Letter. 

Since  these  papers  were  sent  to  the  press,  a  writer  in 
the  public  papers,  who  subscribes  himself  Junius,  has 
made  a  feint  of  bringing  this  question  to  a  short  issue. 
Though  the  foregoing  observations  contain  in  my  opinion, 
at  least,  a  full  refutation  of  all  that  this  writer  has  offered,  I 
shall,  however,  bestow  a  very  ft- w  words  upon  him.  It  will 
cost  me  very  little  trouble  to  unravel  and  expose  the  sophis- 
try of  his  argument. 

1  I  take  the  question,'  says  he,  *  to  be  strictly  this:  Whe- 
ther or  no  it  be  the  known  established  law  of  parliament,  that 
the  expulsion  of  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  of 
itself  creates  in  him  such  an  incapacity  to  be  re-eltcted,  that, 
at  a  subsequent  election,  any  votes  given  to  him  are  null 
and  void;  and  that  any  other  candidate,  who,  except  the  per- 
son expelled,  has  the  greatest  number  of  votes,  ought  to  be 
the  sitting  member.' 

Waving  for  the  present  any  objection  I  may  have  to  this 
state  of  the  question,  I  shall  venture  to  meet  our  champion 
upon  his  own  ground;  and  attempt  to  support  the  affirmative 
of  it,  in  one  of  the  two  ways,  by  which  he  says  it  can  be 
alone  fairly  supported.  '  If  there  be  no  statute,'  says  he, 4  in 
which  the  specific  disability  is  clearly  created,  &c.  (and  we 

*  This  is  the  Postscript,  added  in  a  subsequent  edition,  to  Sir  William 
Blackstone's  reply  to  Sir  William  Meredith's  pamphlet,  as  noticed  in  nofe 
to  page  120  of  the  present  volume.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  129 

acknowledge  there  is  none)  the  custom  of  parliament  must 
then  be  referred  to,  and  some  case  or  cases,  strictly  in  point, 
must  be  produced,  with  the  decision  of  the  court  upon  them.' 
Now  I  assert,  that  this  has  been  done.  Mr.  Walpole's  case 
is  strictly  in  point,  to  prove  that  expulsion  creates  absolute 
incapacity  of  being  re-elected.  This  was  the  clear  decision 
of  the  House  upon  it;  and  was  a  full  declaration,  that  inca- 
pacity was  the  necessary  consequence  of  expulsion.  The  law 
was  as  clearly  and  firmly  fixed  by  this  resolution,  and  is  as 
binding  in  every  subsequent  case  of  expulsion,  as  if  it  had 
been  declared  by  an  express  statute,  "  That  a  member  ex- 
pelled by  a  resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  shall  be 
deemed  incapable  of  being  re-elected."  Whatever  doubt  then 
there  might  have  been  of  the  law  before  Mr.  Walpole's  case, 
with  respect  to  the  full  operation  of  a  vote  of  expulsion,  there 
can  be  none  now.  The  decision  of  the  House  upon  this  case 
is  strictly  in  point  to  prove,  that  expulsion  creates  absolute 
incapacity  in  law  of  being  re-elected. 

But  incapacity  in  law  in  this  instance  must  have  the  same 
operation  and  effect  with  incapacity  in  law  in  every  other 
instance.  Now,  incapacity  of  being  re-elected  implies  in  its 
very  terms,  that  any  votes  given  to  the  incapable  person,  at 
a  subsequent  election,  are  null  and  void.  This  is  its  neces- 
sary operation,  or  it  has  no  operation  at  all.  It  is  vox  et  prce- 
terea  nihil.  We  can  no  more  be  called  upon  to  prove  this 
proposition,  than  we  can  to  prove  that  a  dead  man  is  not 
alive,  or  that  twice  two  are  four.  When  the  terms  are  un- 
derstood, the  proposition  is  self-evident. 

Lastly,  It  is  in  all  cases  of  election,  the  known  and  estab- 
lished law  of  the  land,  grounded  upon  the  clearest  principles 
of  reason  and  common  sense,  that  if  the  votes  given  to  one 
candidate  are  null  and  void,  they  cannot  be  opposed  to  the 
votes  given  to  another  candidate.  They  cannot  affect  the 
votes  of  such  candidate  at  all.  As  they  have,  on  the  one 
hand,  no  positive  quality  to  add  or  establish,  so  have  they, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  negative  one  to  subtract  or  destroy. 
They  are,  in  a  word,  a  mere  non-entity.  Such  was  the  deter- 
mination of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  Maiden  and  Bed- 

Vol.  I.  R 


130  LETTERS  OF 

ford  elections;  cases  strictly  in  point  to  the  present  question, 
as  far  as  they  are  meant  to  be  in  point.  And  to  say,  that 
they  are  not  in  point,  in  all  circumstances,  in  those  particu- 
larly which  are  independent  of  the  proposition  which  they 
are  quoted  to  prove,  is  to  say  no  more  than  that  Maiden  is 
not  Middlesex,  nor  Serjeant  Comyns  Mr.  Wilkes. 

Let  us  see  then  how  our  proof  stands.  Expulsion  creates 
incapacity;  incapacity  annihilates  any  votes  given  to  the  in- 
capable person.  The  votes  given  to  the  qualified  candidate 
stand  upon  their  own  bottom,  firm  and  untouched,  and  can 
alone  have  effect.  This,  one  would  think,  would  be  sufficient. 
But  we  are  stopped  short,  and  told,  that  none  of  our  prece- 
dents come  home  to  the  present  case;  and  are  challenged  to 
produce  "  a  precedent  in  all  the  proceedings  of  the  House 
of  Commons  that  does  come  home  to  it,  viz.  -where  an  ex- 
pelled member  has  been  returned  again,  and  another  candidate, 
•with  an  inferior  number  of  votes,  has  been  declared  the  sitting 
member.'''' 

Instead  of  a  precedent,  I  will  beg  leave  to  put  a  case; 
which,  I  fancy,  will  be  quite  as  decisive  to  the  present  point. 
Suppose  another  Sacheverel,  (and  every  party  must  have  its 
Sacheverel)  should,  at  some  future  election,  take  it  into  his 
head  to  offer  himself  a  candidate  for  the  county  of  Middle- 
sex. He  is  opposed  by  a  candidate,  whose  coat  is  of  a  differ- 
ent colour;  but  however  of  a  very  good  colour.  The  divine 
has  an  indisputable  majority;  nay,  the  poor  layman  is  abso- 
lutely distanced.  The  sheriff,  after  having  had  his  conscience 
well  informed  by  the  reverend  casuist,  returns  him,  as  he 
supposes,  duly  elected.  The  whole  House  is  in  an  uproar,  at 
the  apprehension  of  so  strange  an  appearance  amongst  them. 
A  motion  however  is  at  length  made,  that  the  person  was 
incapable  of  being  elected,  that  his  election  therefore  is  null 
and  void,  and  that  his  competitor  ought  to  have  been  re- 
turned. No,  says  a  great  orator,  First  shew  me  your  law  for 
this  proceeding.  "  Either  produce  me  a  statute,  in  which  the 
specific  disability  of  a  clergyman  is  created;  or  produce  me 
a  precedent  where  a  clergyman  has  been  returned,  and  ano- 
ther candidate,  with  an  inferior  number  of  votes,  has  beende- 


JUNIUS.  131 

dared  the  sitting  member.11  No  such  statute,  no  such  prece- 
dent is  to  be  found.  What  answer  then  is  to  be  given  to  this 
demand?  The  very  same  answer  which  I  will  give  to  that 
of  Junius:  That  there  is  more  than  one  precedent  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  House "  where  an  incapable  person  has 

been  returned,  and  another  candidate,  with  an  inferior  num- 
ber of  votes,  has  been  declared  the  sitting  member;  and  that 
this  is  the  known  and  established  law,  in  all  cases  of  incapa- 
city, from  whatever  cause  it  may  arise." 

I  shall  now  therefore  beg  leave  to  make  a  slight  amend- 
ment to  Junius's  state  of  the  question,  the  affirmative  of 
which  will  then  stand  thus: 

M  It  is  the  known  and  established  law  of  parliament,  that 
the  expulsion  of  any  member  of  the  House  of  Commons 
creates  in  him  an  incapacity  of  being  re  elected;  that  any 
votes  given  to  him  at  a  subsequent  election  are,  in  conse- 
quence of  such  incapacity,  null  and  void;  and  that  any  other 
candidate,  who,  except  the  person  rendered  incapable,  has 
the  greatest  number  of  votes,  ought  to  be  the  sitting  member." 

But  our  business  is  not  yet  quite  finished.  Mr.  Walpole's 
case  must  have  a  re-hearing.  "  It  is  not  possible,"  says  this 
writer,  "  to  conceive  a  case  more  exactly  in  point.  Mr. 
Walpole  was  expelled,  and  having  a  majority  of  votes  at  the 
next  election,  was  returned  again.  The  friends  of  Mr.  Tay- 
lor, a  candidate  set  up  by  the  ministry,  petitioned  the  house 
that  he  might  be  the  sitting  member.  Thus  far  the  circum- 
stances tally  exactly,  except  that  our  House  of  Commons 
saved  Mr.  Luttrell  the  trouble  of  petitioning.  The  point  of 
law,  however,  was  the  same.  It  came  regularly  before  the 
house,  and  it  was  their  business  to  determine  upon  it.  Thev 
did  determine  it;  for  they  declared  Mr.  Taylor  not  duly 
elected:'' 

Instead  of  examining  the  justness  of  this  representation,  I 
shall  beg  leave  to  oppose  against  it  my  own  view  of  this 
case,  in  as  plain  a  manner  and  as  few  words  as  I  am  able. 

It  was  the  known  and  established  law  of  parliament,  when 
the  charge  against  Mr.  Walpole  came  before  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  they  had  power  to  expel,  to  disable,  and  to 


132  LETTERS  OF 

render  incapable  for  offences.  In  virtue  of  this  power  they 
expelled  him. 

Had  they,  in  the  very  vote  of  expulsion,  adjudged  him,  in 
terms,  to  be  incapable  of  being  re-elected,  there  must  have 
been  at  once  an  end  with  him.  But  though  the  right  of  the 
House,  both  to  expel,  and  adjudge  incapable,  was  clear  and 
indubitable,  it  does  not  appear  to  me,  that  the  full  operation 
and  effect  of  a  vote  of  expulsion  singly  was  so.  The  law  in 
this  case  had  never  been  expressly  declared.  There  had  been 
no  event  to  call  up  such  a  declaration.  I  trouble  not  myself 
with  the  grammatical  meaning  of  the  word  expulsion.  I  re- 
gard only  its  legal  meaning.  This  was  not,  as  I  think,  pre- 
cisely fixed.  The  house  thought  proper  to  fix  it,  and  expli- 
citly to  declare  the  full  consequences  of  their  former  vote, 
before  they  suffered  these  consequences  to  take  effect.  And 
in  this  proceeding  they  acted  upon  the  most  liberal  and  solid 
principles  of  equity,  justice  and  law.  What  then  did  the 
burgesses  of  Lynn  collect  from  the  second  vote?  Their  sub- 
sequent conduct  will  tell  us:  it  will  with  certainty  tell  us, 
that  they  considered  it  as  decisive  against  Mr.  Walpole;  it 
will  also,  with  equal  certainty,  tells  us,  that,  upon  supposi- 
tion that  the  law  of  election  stood  then,  as  it  does  now,  and 
that  they  knew  it  to  stand  thus,  they  inferred,  "  that  at  a  fu- 
ture election,  and  in  case  of  a  similar  return,  the  house  would 
receive  the  same  candidate,  as  duly  elected,  whom  they  had 
before  rejected."  They  could  infer  nothing  but  this. 

It  is  needless  to  repeat  the  circumstance  of  dissimilarity 
in  the  present  case.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  observe,  that  as 
the  law  of  parliament,  upon  which  the  House  of  Commons 
grounded  every  step  of  their  proceedings,  was  clear  beyond 
the  reach  of  doubt,  so  neither  could  the  freeholders  of  Mid- 
dlesex be  at  a  loss  to  foresee  what  must  be  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  their  proceedings  in  opposition  to  it.  For 
upon  every  return  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  the  house  made  enquiry, 
whether  any  votes  were  given  to  any  other  candidate? 

But  I  could  venture  for  the  experiment's  sake,  even  to  give 
this  writer  the  utmost  he  asks;  to  allow  the  most  perfect 
similarity  throughout  in  these  two  cases;  to  allow,  that  the 


JUNIUS.  133 

law  of  expulsion  was  quite  as  clear  to  the  burgesses  of  Lynn, 
as  to  tht-  freeholders  of  Middlesex.  It  will,  I  am  confident, 
avail  his  cause  but  little.  It  will  only  prove,  that,  the  law  of 
election  at  that  time  was  different  from  the  present  law.  It 
will  prove,  that,  in  all  cases  of  an  incapable  candidate  return- 
ed, the  law  then  was,  that  the  whole  election  should  be  void. 
But  now  we  know  that  this  is  not  law.  The  cases  of  Maiden 
and  Bedford  were,  as  has  been  seen,  determined  upon  other 
and  more  just  principles.  And  these  determinations  are,  I 
imagine,  admitted  on  all  sides,  to  be  law. 

I  would  willingly  draw  a  veil  over  the  remaining  part  of 
this  paper.  It  is  astonishing,  it  is  painful,  to  see  men  of  parts 
and  ability,  giving  into  the  most  unworthy  artifices,  and  de- 
scending so  much  below  their  true  line  of  character.  But  if 
they  are  not  the  dupes  of  their  sophistry,  (which  is  hardly  to 
be  conceived)  let  them  consider  that  they  are  something 
much  worse. 

The  dearest  interests  of  this  country  are  its  laws  and  its 
constitution.  Against  every  attack  upon  these,  there  will,  I 
hope,  be  always  found  amongst  us  the  firmest  spirit  of  re- 
sistance; superior  to  the  united  efforts  of  faction  and  ambi- 
tion. For  ambition,  though  it  does  not  always  take  the  lead 
of  faction,  will  be  sure  in  the  end  to  make  the  most  fatal  ad- 
vantage of  it,  and  draw  it  to  its  own  purposes.  But,  I  trust, 
our  day  of  trial  is  yet  far  off;  and  there  is  a  fund  of  good 
sense  in  this  country,  which  cannot  long  be  deceived,  by  the  arts 
either  of  false  reasoning  or  false  patriotism. 


LETTER  XX. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

SIB,  8  August,  1769- 

The  gentleman  who  has  published  an  answer  to  Sir  Wil- 
liam Meredith's  pamphlet,  having  honoured  me  with  a  post- 
script of  six  quarto  pages,  which  he  moderately  calls,  be- 
stowing a  very  few  words  upon  me,  I  cannot,  in  common 
politeness,  refuse  him  a  reply.  The  form  and  magnitude  of 


134  LETTERS  OF 

a  quarto  imposes  upon  the  mind;  and  men,  who  are  unequal 
to  the  labour  of  discussing  an  intricate  argument,  or  wish  to 
avoid  it,  are  willing  enough  to  suppose,  that  much  has  been 
proved,  because  much  has  been  said.  Mine,  I  confess,  are 
humble  labours.  I  do  not  presume  to  instruct  the  learned, 
but  simply  to  inform  the  body  of  the  people;  and  I  prefer 
that  channel  of  conveyance,  which  is  likely  to  spread  farthest 
among  them.  The  advocates  of  the  ministry  seem  to  me  to 
write  for  fame,  and  to  flatter  themselves,  that  the  size  of 
their  works  will  make  them  immortal.  Thev  pile  up  reluctant 
quarto  upon  solid  folio,  as  if  their  labours,  because  they  are 
gigantic,  could  contend  with  truth  and  heaven. 

The  writer  of  the  volume  in  question  meets  me  upon  my 
own  ground.  He  acknowledges  there  is  no  statute,  by  which 
the  specific  disability  we  speak  of  is  created,  but  he  affirms, 
that  the  custom  of  parliament  has  been  referred  to,  and  that 
a  case  strictly  in  point  has  been  produced,  with  the  decision 
of  the  court  upon  it. — I  thank  him  for  coming  so  fairly  to  the 
point.  He  asserts,  that  the  case  of  Mr.  Walpole  is  strictly  in 
point  to  prove  that  expulsion  creates  an  absolute  incapacity 
of  being  re-elected;  and  for  this  purpose  he  refers  generally 
to  the  first  vote  of  the  house  upon  that  occasion,  without 
venturing  to  recite  the  vote  itself.  The  unfair,  disingenuous 
artifice  of  adopting  that  part  of  a  precedent,  which  seems  to 
suit  his  purpose,  and  omitting  the  remainder,  deserves  some 
pity,  but  cannot  excite  my  resentment.  He  takes  advantage 
eagerly  of  the  first  resolution,  by  which  Mr.  Walpole's  in- 
capacity is  declared;  but  as  to  the  two  following,  by  which 
the  candidate  with  the  fewest  votes  was  declared  "  not  duly 
elected,"  and  the  election  itself  vacated,  I  dare  say  he  would 
be  well  satisfied,  if  they  were  for  ever  blotted  out  of  the  jour- 
nals of  the  House  of  Commons.  In  fair  argument,  no  part  of 
a  precedent  should  be  admitted,  unless  the  whole  of  it  be 
given  to  us  together.  The  author  has  divided  his  precedent, 
for  he  knew,  that,  taken  together,  it  produced  a  consequence 
directly  the  reverse  of  that,  which  he  endeavours  to  draw 
from  a  vote  of  expulsion.  But  what  will  this  honest  person 
say,  if  I  take  him  at  his  word,  and  demonstrate  to  him,  that 


JUNIUS.  135 

the  House  of  Commons  never  meant  to  found  Mr.  Walpole's 
incapacity  upon  his  expulsion  only?  What  subterfuge  will 
then  remain? 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  we  are  speaking  of  the  inten- 
tion of  men,  who  lived  more  than  half  a  century  ago,  and  that 
such  intention  can  only  be  collected  from  their  words  and 
actions,  as  they  are  delivered  to  us  upon  record.  To  prove 
their  designs  by  a  supposition  of  what  they  would  have  done, 
opposed  to  what  they  actually  did,  is  mere  trifling  and  im- 
pertinence. The  vote,  by  which  Mr.  Walpole's  incapacity 
was  declared,  is  thus  expressed,  "  That  Robert  Walpole, 
Esq.  having  been  this  session  of  parliament  committed  a 
prisoner  to  the  Tower,  and  expelled  this  house  for  a  high 
breach  of  trust  in  the  execution  of  his  office,  and  notorious 
corruption  when  secretary  at  war,  was  and  is  incapable  of 
being  elected  a  member  to  serve  in  this  present  parlia- 
ment*." Now,  sir,  to  my  understanding,  no  proposition  of 
this  kind  can  be  more  evident,  than  that  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, by  this  very  vote,  themselves  understood,  and  meant 
to  declare,  that  Mr.  Walpole's  incapacity  arose  from  the 
crimes  he  had  committed,  not  from  the  punishment  the  house 
annexed  to  them.  The  high  breach  of  trust,  the  notorious 
corruption  are  stated  in  the  strongest  terms.  They  do  not 
tell  us  he  was  incapable  because  he  was  expelled,  but  be- 
cause he  had  been  guilty  of  such  offences  as  justly  rendered 
him  unworthy  of  a  seat  in  parliament.  If  they  had  intended 
to  fix  the  disability  upon  his  expulsion  alone,  the  mention  of 

*  It  is  well  worth  remarking,  that  the  compiler  of  a  certain  quarto,  call- 
ed The  case  of  the  late  electlonfor  the  county  of  Middlesex  considered,  has  the 
impudence  to  recite  this  very  vote,  in  the  following'  terms,  vide  page  11, 
"  Resolved,  that  Robert  Walpole,  Esq.  having  been  that  session  of  parli- 
ament expelled  the  house,  was  and  is  incapable  of  being  elected  a  member 
to  serve  in  that  present  parliament."  There  cannot  be  a  stronger  positive 
proof  of  the  treachery  of  the  compiler,  nor  a  stronger  presumptive  proof 
that  he  was  convinced  that  the  vote,  if  truly  recited,  woidd  overturn  his 
whole  argument.     Author. 

The  editor  has  already  remarked  that  the  pamphlet  alluded  to  in  the 
above  note  of  the  author  was  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Dyson.  See  note  to  p. 
120,  of  the  present  volume.    Edit. 


136  LETTERS  OF 

his  crimes  in  the  same  vote  would  have  been  highly  impro- 
per. It  could  only  perplex  the  minds  of  the  electors,  who,  if 
they  collected  any  thing  from  so  confused  a  declaration  of  the 
law  of  parliament,  must  have  concluded  that  their  represen- 
tative had  been  declared  incapable  because  he  was  highly 
guilty,  not  because  he  had  been  punished.  But  even  admit- 
ting them  to  have  understood  it  in  the  other  sense,  they  must 
then,  from  the  very  terms  of  the  vote,  have  united  the  idea 
of  his  being  sent  to  the  Tower  with  that  of  his  expulsion, 
and  considered  his  incapacity  as  the  joint  effect  of  both*. 

*TO  THE   PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  22  May,  1771. 

Very  early  in  the  debate  upon  the  decision  of  the  Middlesex  election, 
it  was  observed  by  Junius,  that  the  House  of  Commons  had  not  only  ex- 
ceeded their  boasted  precedent  of  the  expulsion  and  subsequent  incapaci- 
tation of  Mr  Walpole,  but  that  they  had  not  even  adhered  to  it  strictly  as 
far  as  it  went  .After  convicting  Mr.  Dyson  of  giving  a  false  quotation  from 
the  Journals,  and  having  explained  the  purpose,  which  that  contemptible 
fraud  was  intended  to  answer,  he  proceeds  to  state  the  vote  itself,  by 
which  Mr.  Walpole's  supposed  incapacity  was  declared,  viz. —  "  Resolved, 
that  Robert  Walpole,  esq.  havingbeen  this  session  of  parliament  committed 
a  prisoner  to  the  Tower,  and  expelled  this  house  for  a  high  breach  of  trust 
in  the  execution  of  his  office,  and  notorious  corruption  when  secretary  at 
war,  was  and  is  incapable  of  being  elected  a  member  to  serve  in  this  pre- 
sent parliament:" — and  then  observes  that,  from  the  terms  of  the  vote, 
we  have  no  right  to  annex  the  incapacitation  to  the  expulsion  only,  for  that, 
as  the  proposition  stands,  it  must  arise  equally  from  the  expulsion  and  the 
commitment  to  the  Tower.  I  believe,  Sir,  no  man,  who  knows  any  thing 
of  Dialectics,  or  who  understands  English,  will  dispute  the  truth  and 
fairness  of  this  construction.  But  Junius  has  a  great  authority  to  support 
him,  which,  to  speak  with  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  I  accidentally  met  with 
this  morning  in  the  course  of  my  reading.  It  contains  an  admonition, 
which  cannot  be  repeated  too  often.  Lord  Sommers,  in  his  excellent  tract 
upon  the  rights  of  the  people,  after  reciting  the  vote  of  the  convention  of 
the  28th  of  January,  1689,  viz.—"  That  King  James  the  second,  having 
endeavoured  to  subvert  the  constitution  of  this  king-dom  by  breaking  the 
original  contract  between  King  and  people,  and  by  the  advice  of  Jesuits 
and  other  wicked  persons  having  violated  the  fundamental  laws,  and  hav- 
ing withdrawn  himself  out  of  this  kingdom,  hath  abdicated  the  govern- 
ment, &.c." — makes  this  observation  upon  it.  "  The  word  abdicated  relates 
to  all  the  clauses  aforegoing,  as  well  as  to  his  deserting  the  kingdom,  or 
else  they  would  have  been  wholly  in  vain."  And  that  there  might  be  no 
pretence  for  confining  the  abdication    merely  to  the  withdrawing,   Lord 

Soman  era 


JUNIUS.  137 

I  do  not  mean  to  give  an  opinion  upon  the  justice  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  House  of  Commons  with  regard  to  Mr. 
Walpole;  but  certainly,  if  I  admitted  their  censure  to  be  well 
founded,  I  could  no  way  avoid  agreeing  with  them  in  the 
consequence  they  drew  from  it.  I  could  never  have  a  doubt, 
in  law  or  reason,  that  a  man,  convicted  of  a  high  breach  of 
trust,  and  of  a  notorious  corruption,  in  the  execution  of  a 
public  office,  was  and  ought  to  be  incapable  of  sitting  in  the 
same  parliament.  Far  from  attempting  to  invalidate  that  vote, 
I  should  have  wished  that  the  incapacity  declared  by  it  could 
legally  have  been  continued  for  ever. 

Sommers  farther  observes,  that  King  James,  by  refusing  to  govern  us  accord- 
ing to  that  law,  by  which  he  held  the  crown,  implicitly  renounced  his  title  to  it. 

If  Junius's  construction  of  the  vote  against  Mr.  Walpole  be  now  ad- 
mitted, (and  indeed  I  cannot  comprehend  how  it  can  honestly  be  disputed) 
the  advocates  of  the  House  of  Commons  must  either  give  up  their  prece- 
dent entirely,  or  be  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  maintaining  one  of  the 
grossest  absurdities  imaginable,  viz.  "That  a  commitment  to  the  Tower 
is  a  constituent  part  of,  and  contributes  half  at  least  to  the  incapacitation 
of  the  person  who  suffers  it-" 

I  need  not  make  you  any  excuse  for  endeavouring  to  keep  alive  the  at- 
tention of  the  public  to  the  decision  of  the  Middlesex  election.  The  more 
I  consider  it,  the  more  I  am  convinced  that,  as  a  fact,  it  is  indeed  highly 
injurious  to  the  rights  of  the  people;  but  that,  as  a  precedent,  it  is  one  of 
the  most  dangerous  that  ever  was  established  against  those  who  are  to 
come  after  us.  Yet  I  am  so  far  a  moderate  man,  that  I  verily  believe  the 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  when  they  passed  this  dangerou*  vote, 
neither  understood  the  question,  nor  knew  the  consequence  of  what  they 
were  doing.  Their  motives  were  rather  despicable,  than  criminal,  in  the 
extreme.  One  effect  they  certainly  did  not  forsee.  They  are  now  reduced 
to  such  a  situation,  that  if  a  member  of  the  present  House  of  Commons 
were  to  conduct  himself  ever  so  improperly,  and  in  reality  deserve  to  be 
sent  back  to  his  constituents  with  a  mark  of  disgrace,  they  would  not  dare 
to  expel  him;  because  they  know  that  the  people,  in  order  to  try  again  the 
great  question  of  right,  or  to  thwart  an  odious  House  of  Commons,  would 
probably  overlook  his  immediate  unworthiness,  and  return  the  same  per- 
son to  parliament. — But,  in  time,  the  precedent  will  gain  strength.  A  fu- 
ture House  of  Commons  will  have  no  such  apprehensions,  consequently 
will  not  scruple  to  follow  a  precedent,  which  they  did  not  establish.  The 
miser  himself  seldom  lives  to  enjoy  the  fruit  of  his  extortion;  but  his  heir 
succeeds  to  him  of  course,  and  takes  possession  without  censure.  No  man 
expects  him  to  make  restitution,  and,  no  matter  for  his  title,  he  lives  quiet- 
ly upon  the  estate- 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 
Vol.  I.  S 


iSii  LETTERS  OF 

Now,  Sir,  observe  how  forcibly  the  argument  returns. 
The  House  of  Commons,  upon  the  face  of  their  proceedings, 
had  the  strongest  motives  to  declare  Mr.  Walpole  incapable 
of  being  re-elected.  They  thought  such  a  man  unworthy  to 
sit  among  them.  To  that  point  they  proceeded; — no  farther; 
for  they  respected  the  rights  of  the  people,  while  they  as- 
serted their  own.  They  did  not  infer,  from  Mr.  Walpole's 
incapacity,  that  his  opponent  was  duly  elected;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  declared  Mr.  Taylor  u  Not  duly  elected,"  and 
the  election  itself  void. 

Such,  however,  is  the  precedent,  which  my  honest  friend 
assures  us  is  strictly  in  point  to  prove,  that  expulsion  of  it- 
self creates  an  incapacity  of  being  elected.  If  it  had  been  so, 
the  present  House  of  Commons  should  at  least  have  followed 
strictly  the  example  before  them,  and  should  have  stated  to 
us,  in  the  same  vote,  the  crimes  for  which  they  expelled  Mr. 
Wilkes;  whereas  they  resolve  simply,  that,  "  having  been 
expelled,  he  was  and  is  incapable."  In  this  proceeding  I  am 
authorised  to  affirm,  they  have  neither  statute,  nor  custom, 
nor  reason,  nor  one  single  precedent  to  support  them.  On 
the  other  side,  there  is  indeed  a  precedent  so  strongly  in 
point,  that  all  the  inchanted  castles  of  ministerial  magic  fall 
before  it.  In  the  year  1698,  (a  period  which  the  rankest 
Tory  dare  not  except  against)  Mr.  Wollaston  was  expelled, 
re-elected,  and  admitted  to  take  his  seat  in  the  same  parlia- 
ment. The  ministry  have  precluded  themselves  from  all  ob- 
jections drawn  from  the  cause  of  his  expulsion,  for  they  af- 
firm absolutely,  that  expulsion  of  itself  creates  the  disability. 
Now,  Sir,  let  sophistry  evade,  let  falsehood  assert,  and  im- 
pudence deny — here  stands  the  precedent,  a  landmark  to  di- 
rect us  through  a  troubled  sea  of  controversy,  conspicuous 
and  unremoved. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  upon  the  discussion  of  this  point, 
because,  in  my  opinion,  it  comprehends  the  whole  question. 
The  rest  is  unworthy  of  notice.  We  are  enquiring  whether 
incapacity  be  or  be  not  created  by  expulsion.  In  the  cases  of 
Bedford  and  Maiden,  the  incapacity  of  the  persons  returned, 
was  matter  of  public  notoriety,  for  it  was  created  by  act  of 


JUNIUS,  i39 


parliament.  But,  really,  Sir,  my  honest  friend's  suppositions 
are  as  unfavourable  to  him  as  his  facts.  He  well  knows  that 
the  clergy,  besides  that  they  are  represented  in  common  with 
their  fellow-subjects,  have  also  a  separate  parliament  of  their 
own; — (hat  their  incapacity  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Commons 
has  been  confirmed  by  repeated  decisions  of  the  house,  and 
that  the  law  of  parliament,  declared  by  those  decisions,  has 
been  for  above  two  centuries  notorious  and  undisputed.  The 
author  is  certainly  at  liberty  to  fancy  cases,  and  make  what- 
ever comparisons  he  thinks  proper;  his  suppositions  still  con* 
tinue  as  distant  from  fact,  as  his  wild  discourses  are  from 
solid  argument. 

The  conclusion  of  his  book  is  candid  to  an  extreme.  He 
offers  to  grant  me  all  I  desire.  He  thinks  he  may  safely  ad- 
mit that  the  case  of  Mr.  Walpole  makes  directly  against 
him,  for  it  seems  he  has  one  grand  solution  in  petto  for  all 
difficulties.  If,  says  he,  I  were  to  alloxv  all  this,  it  xvill  only 
prove,  that  the  law  of  election  was  different,  in  §>ueen  Anne's 
time,  from  what  it  is  at  present. 

This  indeed  is  more  than  I  expected.  The  principle,  I 
know,  has  been  maintained  in  fact,  but  I  never  expected  to 
see  it  so  formally  declared.  What  can  he  mean?  does  he 
assume  this  language  to  satisfy  the  doubts  of  the  people,  or 
does  he  mean  to  rouse  their  indignation;  are  the  ministry 
daring  enough  to  affirm,  that  the  House  of  Commons  have  a 
right  to  make  and  unmake  the  law  of  parliament  at  their 
pleasure? — Does  the  law  of  parliament,  which  we  are  so  often 
told  is  the  law  of  the  land; — does  the  common  right  of  every 
subject  of  the  realm  depend  upon  an  arbitrary  capricious 
vote  of  one  branch  of  the  legislature? — The  voice  of  truth 
and  reason  must  be  silent. 

The  ministry  tell  us  plainly  that  this  is  no  longer  a  ques- 
tion of  right,  but  of  power  and  force  alone.  What  was  law 
yesterday  is  not  law  to-day:  and  now  it  seems  we  have  no 
better  rule  to  live  by  than  the  temporary  discretion  and  fluc- 
tuating integrity  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Professions  of  patriotism  are  become  stale  and  ridiculous* 
For  my  own  part,  I  claim  no  merit  from  endeavouring  to  do 


140  LETTERS  OF 

a  service  to  my  fellow-subjects.  I  have  done  it  to  the  bestot* 
my  understanding;  arid,  without  looking  for  the  approbation 
of  other  men,  my  conscience  is  satisfied.  What  remains  to 
be  done  concerns  the  collective  body  of  the  people.  They 
are  now  to  determine  for  themselves,  whether  they  will 
firmly  and  constitutionally  assert  their  rights;  or  make  an 
humble,  slavish  surrender  of  them  at  the  feet  of  the  ministry. 
To  a  generous  mind  there  cannot  be  a  doubt.  We  owe  it  to 
our  ancestors  to  preserve  entire  those  rights,  which  they 
have  delivered  to  our  care:  we  owe  it  to  our  posterity,  not 
to  suffer  their  dearest  inheritance  to  be  destroyed.  But  if  it 
were  possible  for  us  to  be  insensible  of  these  sacred  claims, 
there  is  yet  an  obligation  binding  upon  ourselves,  from  which 
nothing  can  acquit  us, — a  personal  interest,  which  we  cannot 
surrender.  To  alienate  even  our  own  rights,  would  be  a 
crime  as  much  more  enormous  than  suicide,  as  a  life  of  civil 
security  and  freedom  is  superior  to  a  bare  existence;  and  if 
life  be  the  bounty  of  heaven,  we  scornfully  reject  the  noblest 
part  of  the  gift,  if  we  consent  to  surrender  that  certain  rule 
of  living,  without  which  the  condition  of  human  nature  is 
not  only  miserable,  but  contemptible. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXL 

TO    THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  22  August,  1769. 

I  must  beg  of  you  to  print  a  few  lines,  in  explanation  of 
some  passages  in  my  last  letter,  which  I  see  have  been  mis- 
understood. 

t.  When  I  said,  that  the  House  of  Commons  never  meant 
to  found  Mr.  Walpole's  incapacity  on  his  expulsion  only,  I 
meant  no  more  than  to  deny  tne  general  proposition,  that 
expulsion  alone  creates  the  incapacity.  If  there  be  any  thing 
ambiguous  in  the  expression,  I  beg  leave  to  explain  it  by 
saying,  that,  in  my  opinion,  expulsion  neither  creates,  nor  in 
any  part  contributes  to  create  the  incapacity  in  question. 


JUNIUS.  141 

2. 1  carefully  avoided  entering  into  the  merits  of  Mr.  Wal- 
pole's  case.  I  did  not  enquire,  whether  the  House  of  Com- 
mons acted  justly,  or  whether  they  truly  declared  the  law 
of  parliament.  My  remarks  went  only  to  their  apparent 
meaning  and  intention,  as  it  stands  declared  in  their  own 
resolution. 

3.  I  never  meant  to  affirm,  that  a  commitment  to  the 
Tower  created  a  disqualification.  On  the  contrary,  I  con- 
sidered that  idea  as  an  absurdity,  into  which  the  ministry 
must  inevitably  fall,  if  they  reasoned  right  upon  their  own 
principles. 

The  case  of  Mr.  Wollaston  speaks  for  itself.  The  min- 
istry assert  that  expulsion  alone  creates  an  absolute,  com- 
plete incapacity  to  be  re-elected  to  sit  in  the  same  parlia- 
ment. This  proposition  they  have  uniformly  maintained, 
without  any  condition  or  modification  whatsoever.  Mr. 
Wollaston  was  expelled,  re-elected,  and  admitted  to  take 
his  seat  in  the  same  parliament. — I  leave  it  to  the  public  to 
determine,  whether  this  be  a  plain  matter  of  fact,  or  mere 
nonsense  and  declamation. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE   PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

4  Sept.  1769. 
Argument  against  Fact;  or,  A  new  system  of  political 
Logic,  by  which  the  ministry  have  demonstrated,  to  the 
satisfaction  of  their  friends,  that  expulsion  alone  creates  a 
complete  incapacity  to  be  re  elected;  alias,  that  a  subject 
of  this  realm  may  be  robbed  of  his  common  right,  by  a 
vote  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

FIRST  FACT. 

Mr.  Wollaston,  in  1698,  was  expelled,  re-elected,  and  ad' 
rnitted  to  take  his  seat. 


142  LETTERS  Ol 

ARGUMENT. 

As  this  cannot  conveniently  be  reconciled  with  our  gene- 
ral proposition,  it  may  be  necessary  to  shift  our  ground,  and 
look  back  to  the  cause  of  Mr.  Wollaston's  expulsion.  From 
thence  it  will  appear  clearly  that,  "  although  he  was  expelled, 
he  had  not  rendered  himself  a  culprit  too  ignominious  to  sit 
in  parliament,  and  that  having  resigned  his  employment,  he 
was  no  longer  incapacitated  by  law."  Vide  Serious  Conside- 
rations, page  23.  Or  thus,  "  The  house,  somewhat  inaccu- 
rately, used  the  word  expelled;  they  should  have  called  it 
A  motion."  Vide  Mungo's  case  considered,  page  11.  Or  in 
short,  if  these  arguments  should  be  thought  insufficient,  we 
may  fairly  deny  the  fact.  For  example;  "  I  affirm  that  he  was 
not  re-elected.  The  same  Mr.  Wollaston,  who  was  expelled, 
not  again  elected.  The  same  individual,  if  you  please, 
ed  into  the  house,  and  took  his  seat  there,  but  the  same 
;<,.„,  c  Li  law  was  not  admitted  a  member  of  that  parliament, 
from  which  he  had  been  discarded."  Vide  Letter  to  Junius, 
page  12. 

SECOND  FACT. 

Mr.  Walpoh  having  been  committed  to  the  Tower,  and  ex- 
pelled for  a  high  breach  of  trust  and  notorious  corruption  in 
a  public  office,  was  declared  incapable,  &c. 

ARGUMENT. 

From  the  terms  of  this  vote,  nothing  can  be  more  evident 
than  that  the  House  of  Commons  meant  to  fix  the  incapacity 
upon  the  punishment,  and  not  upon  the  crime;  but  lest  it 
should  appear  in  a  different  light  to  weak,  uninformed  per- 
sons, it  may  be  adviseable  to  gut  the  resolution,  and  give  it 
to  the  public,  with  all  possible  solemnity,  in  the  following 
terms,  viz.  "  Resolved,  that  Robert  Walpole,  Esq.  having 
been  that  session  of  parliament  expelled  the  house,  was  and 
is  incapable  of  being  elected  a  member  to  serve  in  that  pre- 
sent parliament."  Vide  Mungo,  on  the  use  of  quotations, 
page  1 1 . 


JUNIUS.  143 

N.  B.  The  author  of  the  answer  to  Sir  William  Meredith* 
seems  to  have  made  use  of  Mungo's  quotation,  for  in  page 
18,  he  assures  us,  "  That  the  declaratory  vote  of  the  17th  of 
February,  1769,  was  indeed  a  literal  copy  of  the  resolution 
of  the  house  in  Mr.  Walpole's  case." 

THIRD  FACT. 

His  opponent,  Mr.  Taylor,  having  the  smallest  number  of 
votes  at  the  next  election,  zvas  declared  hot  duly  elected. 

ARGUMENT. 

This  fact  we  consider  as  directly  in  point  to  prove  that 
Mr.  Luttrell  ought  to  be  the  sitting  member,  for  the  follow- 
ing reasons,  **  The  burgesses  of  Lynn  could  draw  no  other 
inference  from  this  resolution,  but  this,  that  at  a  future  elec- 
tion, and  in  case  of  a  similar  return,  the  house  would  receive 
the  same  candidate  as  duly  elected,  whom  they  had  before 
rejected."  Vide  Postscript  to  Junius,/?.  37.  Or  thus:  "  This 
their  resolution  leaves  no  room  to  doubt  what  part  they 
•would  have  taken,  if,  upon  a  subsequent  re-election  of  Mr. 
Walpole,  there  had  been  any  other  candidate  in  competition 
with  him.  For,  by  their  vote,  they  could  have  no  other  in- 
tention than  to  admit  such  other  candidate."  Vide  Mungo's 
case  considered,  p.  39.  Or  take  it  in  this  light. — The  bur- 
gesses of  Lynn,  having,  in  defiance  of  the  house,  retorted 
upon  them  a  person,  whom  they  had  branded  with  the  most 
ignominious  marks  of  their  displeasure,  were  thereby  so  well 
intitled  to  favour  and  indulgence,  that  the  house  could  do  no 
less  than  rob  Mr.  Taylor  of  a  right  legally  vested  in  him,  in 
order  that  the  burgesses  might  be  apprized  of  the  law  of  par- 
liament; which  law  the  house  took  a  very  direct  way  of  ex- 
plaining to  them,  by  resolving  that  the  candidate  with  the 
fewest  votes  was  not  duly  elected: — "  And  was  not  this  much 
more  equitable,  more  in  the  spirit  of  that  equal  and  substan- 
tial justice,  which  is  the  end  of  all  law,  than  if  they  had  vio- 
lently adhered  to  the  strict  maxims  of  law?"  Vide  Serious 
Considerations,  p.  33  and  34.  "  And  if  the  present  House  of 

*  S5r  W.  Blackstone, 


144  LETTERS  OF 

Commons  had  chosen  to  follow  the  spirit  of  this  resolution, 
they  would  have  received  and  established  the  candidate  with 
the  fewest  votes."   Vide  Answer  to  Sir  W.  M.  p.  18. 

Permit  me  now,  Sir,  to  shew  you  that  the  worthy  Dr. 
Blackstone  sometimes  contradicts  the  ministry  as  well  as 
himself.  The  Speech  without  doors  asserts*,  page  9,  "  That 
the  legal  effect  of  an  incapacity,  founded  on  a  judicial  deter- 
mination of  a  competent  court,  is  precisely  the  same  as  that 
of  an  incapacity  created  by  act  of  parliament."  Now  for  the 
Doctor. — The  law  and  the  opinion  of  the  judge  are  not  aU 
zvays  convertible  terms,  or  one  and  the  same  thing;  since  it 
sometimes  may  happen  that  the  judge  may  mistake  the  law. 
Commentaries,  Vol.  I.  p.  71. 

The  answer  to  Sir  W.  M.  asserts,  page  23,  "  That  the  re- 
turning officer  is  not  a  judicial,  but  a  purely  ministerial  offi- 
cer. His  return  is  no  judicial  act." — At  'em  again,  Doctor. 
The  Sheriff,  in  his  judicial  capacity  is  to  hear  and  determine 
causes  of  4:0  shillings  value  and  under  in  his  county  court.  He 
has  also  a  judicial  power  in  divers  other  civil  cases.  He  is 
likewise  to  decide  the  elections  of  knights  of  the  shire  (subject 
to  the  control  of  the  House  of  Commons),  to  judge  of  the  qua- 
lification of  voters,  and  to  return  such  as  he  shall  determine 
to  be  duly  elected.  Vide  Commentaries,  page  332.  Vol.  I. 

What  conclusion  shall  we  draw  from  such  facts,  such  ar- 
guments, and  such  contradictions?  I  cannot  express  my 
opinion  of  the  present  ministry  more  exactly  than  in  the 
words  of  Sir  Richard  Steele,  "  that  we  are  governed  by  a  set 
of  drivellers,  whose  folly  takes  away  all  dignity  from  distress, 
and  makes  even  calamity  ridiculousf." 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 


*  See  an  extract  from  this  speech,  inserted  in  the  note  to  Letter  xvi: 
p.  115.  Edit. 

f  In  a  pamphlet  written  by  Steele  upon  the  issue  of  the  South-Sea  in- 
corporation, at  the  period  when  Walpole  was  just  re-emerging  from  ob- 
scurity, to  take  a  more  decided  and  loftier  management  of  public  affairs 
—Edit. 


JUNIUS.  145 


LETTER  XXIII. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  BEDFORD. 

My  Lord,  19  Sept.  1769. 

You  are  so  little  accustomed  to  receive  any  marks  of  re- 
spect or  esteem  from  the  public*,  that  if,  in  the  following 
lines  a  compliment  or  expression  of  applause  should  escape 

*  The  unpopular  peace  of  1763  was  negotiated  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
and  gave  rise  to  a  variety  of  public  commotions  which  at  length  broke  out 
into  acts  of  open  insurrection  among  the  Spital-fields  weavers,  who  ex- 
claimed that  their  trade  was  ruined  by  its  commercial  stipulations.  The 
rumour  became  current  that  the  French  court  had  purchased  this  peace 
by  bribes  to  the  Princess  Dowager  of  Wales,  Lord  Bute,  the  Duke  of 
Bedford,  and  Mr.  Henry  Fox,  afterwards  Lord  Holland:  and  such  was  its 
general  belief  that  the  House  of  Commons  thought  proper  to  appoint  a 
committee  to  examine  into  its  truth;  who  traced  it  chiefly  to  a  Dr.  Mus- 
grave,  who  nevertheless  does  not  appear  to  have  suffered  from  this  libel- 
lous report,  which,  as  he  affirmed,  he  had  brought  home  with  him  from 
Paris.  The  public  disfavour  with  which  the  terms  of  the  peace  were  re- 
ceived, produced  a  fresh  disagreement  between  Lord  Bute  and  the  Duke 
of  Bedford  on  his  return  home.  Upon  the  death  of  Lord  Egremont  how- 
ever, Lord  Bute  found  himself  compelled  once  more  to  apply  to  the  Duke 
©f  Bedford  for  his  interest,  who,  conscious  of  his  importance,  exacted  not 
only  from  Lord  Bute  but  from  the  king  himself  a  submission  to  whatever 
terms  he  chose  to  impose,  and  it  was  upon  this  occasion  that  he  insisted 
upon  the  dismissal  of  Lord  Bute's  brother,  Mr.  Stuart  Mackenzie,  from 
his  office,  although  Mackenzie  had  received  his  majesty's  solemn  promise 
that  he  should  preserve  it  for  life. 

Incapable  of  submitting  to  such  severe  treatment,  his  Majesty  soon  af- 
terwards intreated  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Lord  Rockingham  to  res- 
cue him  from  the  Bedford  party.  They  consented,  and  the  Duke  was 
again  dismissed  with  contumely.  When'his  Majesty  became  disgusted,  as 
he  soon  did,  with  this  ministry  also,  Lord  Bute  applied  in  the  king's  name 
to  George  Grenville  for  support,  and  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who  was  on 
terms  of  the  closest  friendship  with  him,  once  more  strove  to  enter  into  the 
cabinet;  but  on  this  occasion  Lord  Bute  had  spirit  enough  to  treat  his 
offer  with  the  utmost  contempt.  Lord  Chatham  was  next  applied  to,  who 
consented  to  take  the  lead,  provided  he  was  allowed  the  nomination  of  his 
own  friends  into  certain  offices  he  should  designate;  and  this  being  grant- 
ed, to  strengthen  his  own  hands,  he  re-introduced  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
along  with  his  Grace  of  Grafton: — and  on  his  own  resignation,  he  left  them 
both  in  the  respective  offices  they  filled  at  the  time  of  the  address  of  the. 
present  letter  to  the  former  of  these  noblemen.  Edit. 
Vol.  I.  T 


146  LETTERS  OF 

me,  I  fear  you  would  consider  it  as  a  mockery  of  your  esta- 
blished character,  and  perhaps  an  insult  to  your  understand- 
ing. You  have  nice  feelings,  my  Lord,  if  we  may  judge  from 
your  resentments.  Cautious  therefore  of  giving  offence,  where 
you  have  so  little  deserved  it,  I  shall  leave  the  illustration  of 
your  virtues  to  other  hands.  Your  friends  have  a  privilege 
to  play  upon  the  easiness  of  your  temper,  or  possibly  they 
are  better  acquainted  with  your  good  qualities  than  I  am. 
You  have  done  good  by  stealth.  The  rest  is  upon  record. 
You  have  still  left  ample  room  for  speculation,  when  pane- 
gyric is  exhausted. 

You  are  indeed  a  very  considerable  man.  The  highest 
rank; — a  splendid  fortune;  and  a  name,  glorious  till  it  was 
yours,  were  sufficient  to  have  supported  you  with  meaner 
abilities  than  I  think  you  possess.  From  the  first  you  derived 
a  constitutional  claim  to  respect;  from  the  second,  a  natural 
extensive  authority; — the  last  created  a  partial  expectation  of 
hereditary  virtues.  The  use  you  have  made  of  these  uncom- 
mon advantages  might  have  been  more  honourable  to  your- 
self, but  could  not  be  more  instructive  to  mankind.  We  may 
trace  it  in  the  veneration  of  your  country,  the  choice  of  your 
friends,  and  in  the  accomplishment  of  every  sanguine  hope, 
which  the  public  might  have  conceived  from  the  illustrious 
name  of  Russell. 

The  eminence  of  your  station  gave  you  a  commanding 
prospect  of  your  duty.  The  road,  which  led  to  honour,  was 
open  to  your  view.  You  could  not  lose  it  by  mistake,  and  you 
had  no  temptation  to  depart  from  it  by  design.  Compare  the 
natural  dignity  and  importance  of  the  richest  peer  of  Eng- 
land;— the  noble  independence,  which  he  might  have  main- 
tained in  parliament,  and  the  real  interest  and  respect,  which 
he  might  have  acquired,  not  only  in  parliament,  but  through 
the  whole  kingdom;  compare  these  glorious  distinctions  with 
the  ambition  of  holding  a  share  in  government,  the  emolu- 
ments of  a  place,  the  sale  of  a  borough,  or  the  purchase  of  a 
corporation";  and  though  you  may  not  regret  the  virtues, 
which  create  respect,  you  may  see  with  anguish,  how  much 

•  See  note  to  p.  148.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  147 

real  importance  and  authority  you  have  lost.  Consider  the 
character  of  an  independent  virtuous  Duke  of*  Bedford; 
imagine  what  he  might  be  in  this  country,  then  reflect  one 
moment  upon  what  you  are.  If  it  be  possible  for  me  to  with- 
draw my  attention  from  the  fact,  I  will  tell  you  in  theory 
what  such  a  man  might  be. 

Conscious  of  his  own  weight  and  importance,  his  conduct 
in  parliament  would  be  directed  by  nothing  but  the  constitu- 
tional duty  of  a  peer.  He  would  consider  himself  as  a  guar- 
dian of  the  laws.  Willing  to  support  the  just  measures  of 
government,  but  determined  to  observe  the  conduct  of  the 
minister  with  suspicion,  he  would  oppose  the  violence  of 
faction  with  as  much  firmness,  as  the  encroachments  of  pre- 
rogative. He  would  be  as  little  capable  of  bargaining  with 
the  minister  for  places  for  himself,  or  his  dependents,  as  of 
descending  to  mix  himself  in  the  intrigues  of  opposition. 
Whenever  an  important  question  called  for  his  opinion  in 
parliament,  he  would  be  heard,  by  the  most  profligate  minis- 
ter, with  deference  and  respect.  His  authority  would  either 
sanctify  or  disgrace  the  measures  of  government. — The  peo- 
ple would  look  up  to  him  as  to  their  protector,  and  a  virtu- 
ous prince  would  have  one  honest  man  in  his  dominions,  in 
whose  integrity  and  judgment  he  might  safely  confide.  If  it 
should  be  the  will  of  Providence  to  afflict  him  with  a  domes- 
tic misfortune*,  he  would  submit  to  the  stroke,  with  feeling, 
but  not  without  dignity.  He  would  consider  the  people  as 
his  children,  and  receive  a  generous  heart-felt  consolation, 
in  the  sympathizing  tears,  and  blessings  of  his  country. 

Your  Grace  may  probablv  discover  something  more  intel- 
ligible in  the  negative  part  of  this  illustrious  character.  The 
man  I  have  described  would  never  prostitute  his  dignity  in 
parliament  by  an  indecent  violence  either  in  opposing  or  de- 
fending a  minister.  He  would  not  at  one  moment  rancor- 
ously  persecute,  at  another  basely  cringe  to  the  favourite  of 
his  Sovereign.  After  outraging  the  royal  dignity  with  pe- 
remptory conditions,  little  short  of  menace  and  hostility,  he 
would  never  descend  to  the  humility  of  soliciting  an  inter- 
*  The  Duke  lately  lost  his  only  son,  by  a  fall  from  his  horse. 


148  LETTERS  OF 

view*  with  the  favourite,  and  of  offering  to  recover,  at  any 
price,  the  honour  of  his  friendship.  Though  deceived  per- 
haps in  his  youth,  he  would  not,  through  the  course  of  a  long 
life,  have  invariably  chosen  his  friends  from  among  the  most 
profligate  of  mankind.  His  own  honour  would  have  forbid- 
den him  from  mixing  his  private  pleasures  or  conversation 
with  jockeys,  gamesters,  blasphemers,  gladiators, orbuffoons. 
He  would  then  have  never  felt,  much  less  would  he  have 
submitted  to  the  humiliating,  dishonest  necessity  of  engag- 
ing in  the  interest  and  intrigues  of  his  dependents,  of  sup- 
ph'ing  their  vices,  or  relieving  their  beggary,  at  the  expence 
of  hU  country.  He  would  not  have  betrayed  such  ignorance, 
or  such  contempt  of  the  constitution,  as  openly  to  avow,  in 
a  court  of  justice,  the  f  purchase  and  sale  of  a  borough.  He 
would  not  have  thought  it  consistent  with  his  rank  in  the 
state,  or  even  with  his  personal  importance,  to  be  the  little 
tyrant  of  a  little  corporation^:.  He  would  never  have  been 

*  At  this  interview,  which  passed  at  the  house  of  the  late  Lord  Eglin- 
toun,  Lord  Bute  told  the  Duke  that  he  was  determined  never  to  have  any 
connection  with  a  man,  who  had  so  basely  betrayed  him. 

|  In  an  answer  in  Chancery,  in  a  suit  against  him  to  recover  a  large  sum 
paid  him  by  a  person,  whom  he  had  undertaken  to  return  to  parliament, 
for  one  of  his  Grace's  boroughs.  He  was  compelled  to  repay  the  money. 

\  Of  Bedford,  where  the  tyrant  was  held  in  such  contempt  and  detes- 
tation, that,  in  order  to  deliver  themselves  from  him,  they  admitted  a  great 
number  of  strangers  to  the  freedom.  To  make  his  defeat  truly  ridiculous, 
he  tried  his  whole  strength  against  Mr.  Home,  and  was  beaten  upon  his 
own  ground.   Author. 

This  contest  took  place  September  4th,  1769,  on  the  election  of  mayor, 
bailiffs,  and  chamberlains  for  the  borough  of  Bedford.  His  Grace  having 
in  vain  objected  to  the  making  of  any  new  freemen,  at  length  prevailed  on 
the  corporation  to  allow  some  of  his  own  particular  friends  to  be  put  in 
nomination,  when  about  twenty  of  them  were  made  accordingly.  The 
names  of  the  freemen  proposed  to  be  elected  on  the  popular  side  of  the 
question,  were  then  read,  and  were  heard  with  profound  silence  by  his 
Grace,  'till  the  name  of  John  Home  was  pronounced,  when  the  Duke  ex- 
pressed himself  with  great  bitterness  towards  that  gentleman  in  particular; 
the  corporation  however  divided  upon  the  point,  and  Mr  Home  was  elect- 
ed, there  being  seventeen  votes  in  his  favour  and  eleven  against  him.  The 
candidates  for  the  oifice  of  mayor  were  on  the  popular  side  Mr.  Cawne, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  Mr.  Richards,  the  former  of  whom 
was  elected  by  458  votes  against  26.  The  triumph  over  his  Grace  was  of 
conrse  complete.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  149 

insulted  with  virtues,  which  he  had  laboured  to  extinguish, 
nor  suffered  the  disgrace  of  a  mortifying  defeat,  which  has 
made  him  ridiculous  and  contemptible,  even  to  the  few  by 
whom  he  was  not  detested. — I  reverence  the  afflictions  of  a 
good  man, — his  sorrows  are  sacred.  But  how  can  we  take 
part  in  the  distresses  of  a  man,  whom  we  can  neither  love 
nor  esteem;  or  feel  for  a  calamity  of  which  he  himself  is  in- 
sensible? Where  was  the  father's  heart,  when  he  could  look 
for,  or  find  an  immediate  consolation  for  the  loss  of  an  only 
son,  in  consultations  and  bargains  for  a  place  at  court,  and 
even  in  the  misery  of  balloting  at  the  India  House! 

Admitting  then  that  you  have  mistaken  or  deserted  those 
honourable  principles,  which  ought  to  have  directed  your 
conduct;  admitting  that  you  have  as  little  claim  to  private 
affection  as  to  public  esteem,  let  us  see  with  what  abilities, 
with  what  degree  of  judgment  you  have  carried  your  own 
system  into  execution.  A  great  man,  in  the  success  and  even 
in  the  magnitude  of  his  crimes,  finds  a  rescue  from  con- 
tempt. Your  Grace  is  every  way  unfortunate.  Yet  I  will  not 
look  back  to  those  ridiculous  scenes,  by  which  in  your  earlier 
days,  you  thought  it  an  honour  to  be  distinguished*;  the 
recorded  stripes,  the  public  infamy,  your  own  sufferings,  or 
Mr.  Rigby's  fortitude.  These  events  undoubtedly  left  an 
impression,  though  not  upon  your  mind.  To  such  a  mind, 
it  may  perhaps  be  a  pleasure  to  reflect,  that  there  is  hardly 
a  corner  of  any  of  his  Majesty's  kingdoms,  except  France, 
in  which,  at  one  time  or  other,  your  valuable  life  has  not 
been  in  danger.  Amiable  man!  we  see  and  acknowledge  the 
protection  of  Providence,  by  which  you  have  so  often 
escaped  the  personal  detestation  of  your  fellow-subjects,  and 
are  still  reserved  for  the  public  justice  of  your  country. 

*  Mr.  Heston  Homphrey,  a  country  Attorney,  horsewhipped  the  Duke, 
with  equal  justice,  severity,  and  perseverance,  on  the  course  at  Litchfield. 
Rigby  and  Lord  Trentham  were  also  cudgelled  in  a  most  exemplary  man- 
ner. This  gave  rise  to  the  following  story:  "When  the  late  King  heard 
that  Sir  Edward  Hawke  had  given  the  French  a  drubbing,  his  Majesty,  who 
had  never  received  that  kind  of  chastisement,  was  pleased  to  ask  Lord 
Chesterfield  the  meaning  of  the  word — Sir,  says  Lord  Chesterfield,  the 
meaning  of  the  word — but  here  comes  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who  is  better 
able  to  explain  it  to  your  Majesty  than  I  am." 


150  LETTERS  Ol 

Your  history  begins  to  be  important  at  that  auspicious  pe- 
riod, at  which  you  were  deputed  to  represent  the  Earl  of 
Bute,  at  the  court  of  Versailles.  It  was  an  honourable  office, 
and  executed  with  the  same  spirit,  with  which  it  was  ac- 
cepted. Your  patrons  wanted  an  ambassador,  who  would 
submit  to  make  concessions,  without  daring  to  insist  upon 
any  honourable  condition  for  his  Sovereign*.  Their  busi- 

*  Soon  after  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford  the  following'  paragraph 
was  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  and  as  it  remained  uncontradicted, 
there  is  some  reason  to  believe  it  authentic.  As  the  Duke  in  this  letter  is 
arraigned  in  the  most  severe  terms  for  the  concessions  made  in  negotiating 
the  peace  of  1763,  it  is  but  justice  to  his  Grace,  that  a  circumstance  so 
honourable  should  be  more  generally  known.  The  paragraph  runs  thus: 

"  The  following  anecdote  of  the  late  Duke  of  Bedford  may  be  depended 

upon  as  fact: When  his  Grace  negotiated  the  late  peace  at  Paris,  he 

signed  the  preliminaries  with  the  French  minister  Choiseul,  and  stipulated 
no  farther  for  the  possessions  of  the  East  India  Company  than  he  was  ad- 
vised to  stipulate  by  the  court  of  directors  A  gentleman  (a  Dutch  Jew  of 
great  abilities  and  character)  hearing  this,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford, informing  him  that  the  English  East  India  Company  had  materially  ne- 
glected their  own  interest,  as  their  chief  conquests  were  made  subsequent 
to  the  period  at  which  they  had  fixed  their  claim  of  sovereignty;  and  if 
these  latter  conquests  were  to  be  restored,  an  immense  annual  revenue 
would  necessarily  be  taken  from  England.  The  Duke,  struck  with  the 
force-  of  the  fact,  yet  embarrassed  how  to  act,  as  preliminaries  were  really- 
signed,  repaired  to  Choiseul  at  Versailles,  and  addressed  him  thus: — '  My 
Lord,  1  have  committed  a  great  mistake  in  signing  the  preliminaries,  as 
the  affair  of  the  India  possessions  must  be  carried  down  to  our  last  con- 
quest in  Asia.'  To  this  Choiseul  replied,  '  Your  Grace  astonishes  me;  I 
thought  I  had  been  treating  with  the  minister  of  a  great  nation,  and  not 
with  a  student  in  politics,  who  does  not  consider  the  validity  of  written 
engagements.'  •  Your  reproach,  my  Lord,  is  just,'  returned  the  Duke, 
•  but  I  will  not  add  treachery  to  negligence,  nor  betray  my  country  delibe- 
rately, because  I  have  overlooked  her  interest  unaccountably  in  a  single 
circumstance;  therefore,  unless  your  Lordship  agrees  to  cede  the  latter 
conquests  in  India,  I  shall  return  home  in  twelve  hours,  and  submit  the 
fate  of  my  head  to  the  discretion  of  an  English  parliament.'  Choiseul,  stag- 
gered at  the  Duke's  intrepidity,  complied;  and  this  country  now  enjoys 
above  half  a  million  annually  through  the  firmness  of  a  man,  whom  it  is 
even  patriotism  at  present  to  calumniate,  but  whose  virtues  have  never 
yet  received  justice  from  the  community.  On  the  termination  of  the  affair 
to  his  satisfaction,  he  gave  his  informant,  the  Dutch  gentleman,  the  warm- 
est recommendations  to  England,  who  accordingly  came  over,  and  receives 
at  this  moment  a  pension  of  500/.  a  year  from  the  India  Company  as  a 
eward  for  his  services"  Edit. 


Junius.  151 

ness  required  a  man,  who  had  as  little  feeling  for  his  own 
dignity  as  for  the  welfare  of  his  country;  and  they  found  him 
in  the  fir^t  rank  of  the  nobility.  Belleisle,  Goree,  Guada- 
loupe,  St.  Lucia,  Martinique,  the  Fishery,  and  the  Havanna, 
are  glorious  monuments  of  your  Grace's  talents  for  negotia- 
tion*. My  Lord,  we  are  too  well  acquainted  with  your  pe- 
cuniary character,  to  think  it  possible  that  so  many  public 
sacrifices  should  have  been  made,  without  some  private  com- 
pensations. Your  conduct  carries  with  it  an  internal  evi- 
dence, beyond  all  the  legal  proofs  of  a  court  of  justice.  Even 
the  callous  pride  of  Lord  Egremont  was  alarmedf.  He  saw 
and  fiilt  his  own  dishonour  in  corresponding  with  you;  and 
there  certainly  was  a  moment,  at  which  he  meant  to  have 
resisted,  had  not  a  fatal  lethargy  prevailed  over  his  faculties, 
and  carried  all  sense  and  memory  away  with  it. 

I  will  not  pretend  to  specify  the  secret  terms  on  which 
you  were  invited  to  support  an  ^  administration  which  Lord 
Bute  pretended  to  leave  in  full  possession  of  their  ministe- 
rial authority,  and  perfectly  masters  of  themselves.  He  was 
not  of  a  temper  to  relinquish  power,  though  he  retired  from 
employment.  Stipulations  were  certainly  made  between  your 

!  Grace  and  him,  and  certainly  violated.  After  two  years  sub- 
mission, you  thought  you  had  collected  a  strength  sufficient 
to  controul  his  influence,  and  that  it  was  your  turn  to  be  a 

•  tyrant,  because  you  had  been  a  slave.  When  you  found  your- 
self mistaken  in  your  opinion  of  your  gracious  Master's 
firmness,  disappointment  got  the  better  of  ail  your  humble 
discretion,  and  carried  you  to  an  excess  of  outrage  to  his 
person,  as  distant  from  true  spirit,  as  from  all  decency  and 

*  The  peace  of  1763  was  negotiated  by  his  Grace  of  Bedford;  the  con- 

|  quests  here  specified  were  relinquished  by  its  conditions:  and  the  rumour, 

;  as  already  observed,  was  in  general  circulation  that  the  Duke  and  his 

!    friends  had  been  bribed  into  so  prodigal  a  surrender.  See  the  note  in  p. 

[i  145  of  the  present  volume.  Edit. 

f  This  man,  notwithstanding  his  pride  and  Tory  principles,  had  some 
\  i  English  stuff  in  him    Upon  an  official  letter  he  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
t   ford,  the  Duke  desired  to  be  recalled,  and  it  was  with  the  utmost  diffi- 
culty that  Lord  Bute  could  appease  him. 

t  Mr.  Grenville,  Lord  Halifax,  and  Lord  Egremont 


152  LETTERS  OF 

respect*.  After  robbing  him  of  the  rights  of  a  King,  you 
would  not  permit  him  to  preserve  the  honour  of  a  gentle- 
man. It  was  then  Lord  Weymouth  was  nominated  to  Ire- 
land, and  dispatched  (we  well  remember  with  what  inde- 
cent hurry)  to  plunder  the  treasury  of  the  first  fruits  of  an 
employment  which  you  well  knew  he  was  never  to  executef. 

This  sudden  declaration  of  war  against  the  favourite 
might  have  given  you  a  momentary  merit  with  the  public,  if 
it  had  either  been  adopted  upon  principle,  or  maintained 
with  resolution.  Without  looking  back  to  all  your  former 
servility,  we  need  only  observe  your  subsequent  conduct,  to 
see  upon  what  motives  you  acted.  Apparently  united  with 
Mr.  Grenville,  you  waited  until  Lord  Rockingham's  feeble 
administration  should  dissolve  in  its  own  weakness. — The 
moment  their  dismission  was  suspected,  the  moment  you 
perceived  that  another  system  was  adopted  in  the  closet,  you 
thought  it  no  disgrace  to  return  to  your  former  dependence, 
and  solicit  once  more  the  friendship  of  Lord  Bute.  You 
begged  an  interview,  at  which  he  had  spirit  enough  to  treat 
you  with  contempt. 

It  would  now  be  of  little  use  to  point  out,  by  what  a  train 
of  weak,  injudicious  measures,  it  became  necessary,  or  was 
thought  so,  to  call  you  back  to  a  share  in  the  administration^. 
The  friends,  whom  you  did  not  in  the  last  instance  desert, 
were  not  of  a  character  to  add  strength  or  credit  to  govern- 
ment; and  at  that  time  your  alliance  with  the  Duke  of  Graf- 
ton was,  I  presume,  hardly  foreseen.  We  must  look  for 
other  stipulations,  to  account  for  that  sudden  resolution  of 
the  closet,  by  which  three  of  your  dependants§  (whose  cha- 

*  The  ministry  having  endeavoured  to  exclude  the  Dowager  out  of  the 
regency  bill,  the  Earl  of  Bute  determined  to  dismiss  them.  Upon  this  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  demanded  an  audience  of  the  King,  reproached  him  in 
plain  terms,  with  Ids  duplicity,  baseness,  falsehood,  treachery,  and  hypo- 
crisy,— repeatedly  gave  him  the  lie,  and  left  him  in  convulsions. 

-f-  He  received  three  thousand  pounds  for  plate  and  equipage  money. 

\  When  Earl  Gower  was  appointed  president  of  the  council,  the  King, 
with  his  usual  sincerity,  assured  him,  that  he  had  not  had  one  happy  mo- 
ment, since  the  Duke  of  Bedford  left  him. 

§  Lords  Cower,  Weymouth,  and  Sandwich. 


JUNIUS.  153 

racters,  I  think,  cannot  be  less  respected  than  they  are)  were 
advanced  to  offices,  through  which  \  ou  might  again  controul 
the  minister,  and  probably  engross  the  whole  direction  of 
affairs. 

The  possession  of  absolute  power  is  now  once  more  within 
your  reach.  The  measures  you  have  taken  to  obtain  and  con- 
firm it,  are  too  gross  to  escape  the  eyes  of  a  discerning  judi- 
cious prince.  His  palace  is  besieged;  the  lines  of  circumval- 
lation  are  drawing  round  him;  and  unless  he  finds  a  resource 
in  his  own  activity,  or  in  the  attachment  of  the  real  friends 
of  his  family,  the  best  of  princes  must  submit  to  the  confine- 
ment of  a  state  prisoner,  until  your  Grace's  death,  or  some 
less  fortunate  event  shall  raise  the  siege.  For  the  present, 
you  may  safely  resume  that  stile  of  insult  and  menace,  which 
even  a  private  gentleman  cannot  submit  to  hear  without  be- 
ing contemptible.  Mr.  Mackenzie's  history  is  not  yet  for- 
gotten, and  vou  mav  find  precedents  enough  of  the  mode, 
in  which  an  imperious  subject  may  signify  his  pleasure  to 
his  Sovereign.  Where  will  this  gracious  monarch  look  for 
assistance,  when  the  wretched  Grafton  could  forget  his  obli- 
gations to  his  master,  and  desert  him  for  a  hollow  alliance 
with  such  a  man  as  the  Duke  of  Bedford! 

Let  us  consider  you,  then,  as  arrived  at  the  summit  of 
worldly  greatness;  let  us  suppose,  that  all  your  plans  of  ava- 
rice and  ambition  are  accomplished,  and  your  most  sanguine 
wishes  gratified  in  the  fear,  as  well  as  the  hatred  of  the  peo- 
ple: Can  age  itself  forget  that  you  are  now  in  the  last  act  of 
life?  Can  grey  hairs  make  folly  venerable?  and  is  there  no 
period  to  be  reserved  for  meditation  and  retirement?  For 
shame!  my  Lord:  let  it  not  be  recorded  of  you,  that  the 
latest  moments  of  your  life  were  dedicated  to  the  same  un- 
worthy pursuits,  the  same  busy  agitations,  in  which  your 
youth  and  manhood  were  exhausted.  Consider,  that,  al- 
though you  cannot  disgrace  your  former  life,  you  are 
violating  the  character  of  age,  and  exposing  the  impotent  im- 
becility, after  you  have  lost  the  vigour  of  the  passions. 

Your  friends  will  ask,  perhaps,  Whither  shall  this  unhap- 
py old  man  retire?  Can  he  remain  in  the  metropolis,  where 

Vol.  I.  U 


154  LETTERS  OF 

his  life  has  been  so  often  threatened,  and  his  palace  so  often 
attacked?  If  he  returns  to  Wooburn,  scorn  and  mockery 
await  him.  He  must  create  a  solitude  round  his  estate,  if 
he  would  avoid  the  face  of  reproach  and  derision.  At  Ply- 
mouth, his  destruction  would  be  more  than  probable;  at 
Exeter,  inevitable.  No  honest  Englishman  will  ever  forget 
his  attachment,  nor  any  honest  Scotchman  forgive  his  trea- 
chery, to  Lord  Bute.  At  every  town  he  enters,  he  must 
change  his  liveries  and  his  name.  Which  ever  way  he  flies, 
the  Hue  and  Cry  of  the  country  pursues  him. 

In  another  kingdom  indeed,  the  blessings  of  his  adminis- 
tration have  been  more  sensibly  felt;  his  virtues  better  un- 
derstood; or  at  worst,  they  will  not,  for  him  alone,  forget 
their  hospitality. — As  well  might  Verres  have  returned  to 
Sicily.  You  have  twice  escaped,  my  Lord;  beware  of  a  third 
experiment.  The  indignation  of  a  whole  people,  plundered, 
insulted,  and  oppressed  as  they  have  been,  will  not  always  be 
disappointed. 

It  is  in  vain  therefore  to  shift  the  scene.  You  can  no  more 
fly  from  your  enemies  than  from  yourself.  Persecuted 
abroad,  you  look  into  your  own  heart  for  consolation,  and 
find  nothing  but  reproaches  and  despair.  But,  my  Lord,  you 
may  quit  the  field  of  business,  though  not  the  field  of  danger; 
and  though  you  cannot  be  safe,  you  may  cease  to  be  ridicu- 
lous. I  fear  you  have  listened  too  long  to  the  advice  of  those 
pernicious  friends,  with  whose  interests  you  have  sordidly 
united  your  own,  and  for  whom  you  have  sacrificed  every 
thing  that  ought  to  be  dear  to  a  man  of  honour.  They  are 
still  base  enough  to  encourage  the  follies  of  your  age,  as  they 
once  did  the  vices  of  your  youth.  As  little  acquainted  with 
the  rules  of  decorum,  as  with  the  laws  of  morality,  they  will 
not  suffer  you  to  profit  by  experience,  nor  even  to  consult 
the  propriety  of  a  bad  character.  Even  now  they  tell  you, 
that  life  is  no  more  than  a  dramatic  scene,  in  which  the  hero 
should  preserve  his  consistency  to  the  last,  and  that  as  you 
lived  without  virtue,  you  should  die  without  repentance*. 

JUNIUS. 

*  As  some  apprehension  was  entertained  by  the  printer,  that  he  might 


JUNIUS.  155 


LETTER  XXIV. 

TO    JUNIUS. 
Sir,  14  September;  1769. 

Having  accidentally  seen  a  republication  of  your  letters, 
wherein  you  have  been  pleased  to  assert,  that  I  had  sold  the 
companions  of  my  success;  I  am  again  obliged  to  declare  the 
said  assertion  to  be  a  most  infamous  and  malicious  falsehood; 
and  I  again  call  upon  you  to  stand  forth,  avow  yourself,  and 
prove  the  charge.  If  you  can  make  it  out  to  the  satisfaction 
of  any  one  man  in  the  kingdom,  I  will  be  content  to  be 
thought  the  worst  man  in  it;  if  you  do  not,  what  must  the 
nation  think  of  you?  Party  has  nothing  to  do  in  this  affair: 
you  have  made  a  personal  attack  upon  my  honour,  defamed 
me  by  a  most  vile  calumny,  which  might  possibly  have  sunk 
into  oblivion,  had  not  such  uncommon  pains  been  taken  to 
renew  and  perpetuate  this  scandal*,  chiefly  because  it  has 
been  told  in  good  language:  for  I  give  you  full  credit  for 
your  elegant  diction,  well  turned  periods,  and  attic  wit;  but 
wit  is  oftentimes  false,  though  it  may  appear  brilliant;  which 
is  exactly  the  case  of  your  whole  performance.  But,  Sir,  I 
am  obliged  in  the  most  serious  manner  to  accuse  you  of  be- 
ing guilty  of  falsities.  You  have  said  the  thing  that  is  not. 
To  support  your  story,  you  have  recourse  to  the  following 
irresistible  argument:  "  You  sold  the  companions  of  your 
victory,  because  when  the  16th  regiment  was  given  to  you, 
you  was  silent.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable."  I  believe  that 
such  deep  and  acute  reasoning1  could  only  come  from  such  an 
extraordinary  writer  as  Junius.  But  unfortunately  for  you, 

be  brought  before  the  House  of  Lords,  for  inserting1  this  letter  in  his  paper, 
Junius  wrote  to  him  in  Private  Letter,  No.  10,  as  follows: — "  As  to  you 
it  is  clearly  my  opinion  that  you  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  Duke  of 
Bedford.  I  reserve  some  things  expressly  to  awe  him,  in  case  he  should 
think  of  bringing  you  before  the  House  of  Lords.  1  am  sure  I  can  threaten 
him  privately  with  such  a  storm,  as  would  make  him  tremble  even  in  his 
grave."  See  also  Vol.1,  p.  165    Edit. 

*  The  reader  will  perceive,  by  a  reference  to  the  Private  Letters,  No.  4. 
that  this  republication  was  without  the  author's  knowledge  or  consent.— 
Edit. 


156  LETTERS  OF 

the  premises  as  well  as  the  conclusion  are  absolutely  false. 
Many  applications  have  been  made  to  the  ministry  on  the 
subject  of  the  Manilla  ransom  since  the  time  of  my  being 
colonel  of  that  regiment.  As  I  have  for  some  years  quitted 
London,  I  v/as  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  the  honourable 
Colonel  Monson  and  Sir  Samuel  Cornish*,  to  negotiate  for 
me;  in  the  last  autumn,  I  personally  delivered  a  memorial  to 
the  Earl  of  Shelburne  at  his  seat  in  Wiltshire.  As  you  have 
told  us  of  your  importance,  that  you  are  a  person  of  rank  and 
fortune,  and  above  a  common  bribef,  you  may  in  all  proba- 
bility be  not  unknown  to  his  lordship,  who  can  satisfy  you  of 
the  truth  of  what  I  say.  But  I  shall  now  take  the  liberty,  Sir, 
to  seize  you  rbattery,  and  turn  it  against  yourself.  If  your 
puerile  and  tinsel  logic  could  carry  the  least  weight  or  con- 
viction with  it,  how  must  you  stand  affected  by  the  inevitable 
conclusion,  as  you  are  plrased  to  term  it?  According  to  Ju- 
nius, silence  is  guilt.  In  many  of  the  public  papers,  you 
have  been  called  in  the  most  direct  and  offensive  terms  a 
liar  and  a  coward.  When  did  you  reply  to  these  foul  accusa- 
tions? You  have  been  quite  silent;  quite  chop-fallen:  there- 
fore, because  you  was  silent,  the  nation  has  a  right  to  pro- 
nounce you  to  be  both  a  liar  and  a  coward  from  your  own 
argument:  but,  Sir,  I  will  give  you  fairer  play;  will  afford 
you  an  opportunity  to  wipe  off  the  first  appellation;  by  desir- 
ing the  proofs  of  your  charge  against  me.  Produce  them? 
To  wipe  off  the  last,  produce  ijourself.  People  cannot  bear 
any  longer  your  Lion's  skin,  and  the  despicable  imposture  of 
the  old  Roman  name  which  you  have  affected.  For  the  future 
assume  the  name  of  some  modeni\  bravo  and  dark  assassin: 
let  your  appellation  have  some  affinity  to  your  practice.  But 
if  I  must  perish,  Junius,  let  ma  perish  in  the  face  of  day;  be 
for  once  a  generous  and  open  enemy.  I  allow  that  gothic  ap- 
peals to  cold  iron  are  no  better  proofs  of  a  man's  honesty 

*  These  gentlemen  accompanied  Sir  William  as  brother  officers  in  his 
expedition  against  the  Philippines.  Edit- 

•J- See  Miscellaneous  Letters  of  the  Author,  No.  liv.  Edit. 
%  Was   Brutus  an  ancient  bravo  and  dark  assassin?  or  does  Sir  W.  D. 
hink  it  criminal  to  stab  a  tyrant  to  the  heart ' 


JUNIUS;  157 

and  veracity  than  hot  iron  and  burning  ploughshares  are  of 
female  chastity:  but  a  soldier's  honour  is  as  delicate  as  a 
woman's;  it  must  not  be  suspected;  you  have  dared  to  throw 
more  than  a  suspicion  upon  mine:  you  cannot  but  know  the 
consequences,  which  even  the  meekness  of  Christianity  would 
pardon  me  for,  after  the  injury  you  have  done  me. 

WILLIAM  DRAPER. 


LETTER  XXV. 

Hxret  lateri  lethalis  arundo. 
TO  SIR  WILLIAM  DRAPER,  KNIGHT  OF  THE  BATH. 

Sir,  25  September,  1769. 

After  so  long  an  interval,  I  did  not  expect  to  see  the 
debate  revived  between  us.  My  answer  to  your  last  letter 
shall  be  short;  for  I  write  to  you  with  reluctance,  and  I  hope 
we  shall  now  conclude  our  correspondence  for  ever. 

Had  you  been  originally  and  without  provocation  attacked 
by  an  anonymous  writer,  you  would  have  some  right  to  de- 
mand his  name.  But  in  this  cause  you  are  a  volunteer.  You 
engaged  in  it  with  the  unpremeditated  gallantry  of  a  soldier. 
You  were  content  to  set  your  name  in  opposition  to  a  man, 
who  would  probably  continue  in  concealment.  You  under- 
stood the  terms  upon  which  we  were  to  correspond,  and  gave 
at  least  a  tacit  assent  to  them.  After  voluntarily  attacking 
me  under  the  character  of  Junius,  what  possible  right  have 
you  to  know  me  under  any  other?  Will  you  forgive  me  if  I 
insinuate  to  you,  that  you  foresaw  some  honour  in  the  appa- 
rent spirit  of  coming  forward  in  person,  and  that  you  were 
not  quite  indifferent  to  the  display  of  your  literary  qualifica- 
tions? 

You  cannot  but  know  that  the  republication  of  my  letters 
Was  no  more  than  a  catchpenny  contrivance  of  a  printer,  in 
which  it  was  impossible  I  should  be  concerned,  and  for  which 
I  am  no  way  answerable.  At  the  same  time  I  wish  you  to 
understand,  that  if  I  do  not  take  the  trouble  of  reprinting 


iSn  LETTERS  OF 

these  papers,  it  is  not  from  any  fear  of  giving  offence  to  Sir 
William  Draper. 

Your  remarks  upon  a  signature,  adopted  merely  for  dis- 
tinction, are  unworthy  of  notice;  but  when  you  tell  me  I  have 
submitted  to  be  called  a  liar  and  a  coward,  I  must  ask  you 
in  my  turn,  whether  you  seriously  think  it  any  way  incum- 
bent upon  me  to  take  notice  of  the  silly  invectives  of  every 
simpleton,  who  writes  in  a  newspaper;  and  what  opinion  you 
would  have  conceived  of  my  discretion,  if  I  had  suffered  my- 
self to  be  the  dupe  of  so  shallow  an  artifice? 

Your  appeal  to  the  sword,  though  consistent  enough  with 
your  late  profession,  will  neither  prove  your  innocence  nor 
clear  you  from  suspicion.— —Your  complaints  with  regard 
to  the  Manilla  ransom  were,  for  a  considerable  time,  a  dis- 
tress to  government.  You  were  appointed  (greatly  out  of 
your  turn)  to  the  command  of  a  regiment,  and  during  that 
administration  we  heard  no  more  of  Sir  William  Draper. 
The  facts,  of  which  I  speak,  may  indeed  be  variously  ac- 
counted for,  but  they  are  too  notorious  to  be  denied;  and  I 
think  you  might  have  learnt  at  the  university,  that  a  false 
conclusion  is  an  error  in  argument,  not  a  breach  of  veracity. 
Your  solicitations,  I  doubt  not,  were  renewed  under  another 
administration.  Admitting  the  fact,  I  fear  an  indifferent 
person  would  only  infer  from  it,  that  experience  had  made 
you  acquainted  with  the  benefits  of  complaining.  Remember, 
Sir,  that  you  have  yourself  confessed,  that,  considering  the 
critical  situation  of  this  country,  the  ministry  are  in  the  right 
to  temporise  -with  Spain.  This  confession  reduces  you  to  an 
unfortunate  dilemma.  By  renewing  your  solicitations,  you 
must  either  mean  to  force  your  country  into  a  war  at  a  most 
unseasonable  juncture;  or,  having  no  view  or  expectation  of 
that  kind,  that  you  look  for  nothing  but  a  private  compensa- 
tion to  yourself. 

As  to  me,  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  I  should  be 
exposed  to  the  resentment  of  the  worst  and  the  most  power- 
ful men  in  this  country*,  though  I  may  be  indifferent  about 

*  See  Private  Letters,  No.  41.  in  which  he  continues  to  entertain  some 
apprehensions  concerning  the  effects  of  a  discovery  of  his  person.  Edtt. 


JUNIUS.  159 

yours.  Though  you  would  fight,  there  are  others  who  would 
assassinate. 

But  after  all,  Sir,  where  is  the  injury?  You  assure  me,  that 
my  logic  is  puerile  and  tinsel;  that  it  carries  not  the  least 
weight  or  conviction;  that  my  premises  are  false  and  my 
conclusions  absurd.  If  this  be  a  just  description  of  me,  how 
is  it  possible  for  such  a  writer  to  disturb  your  peace  of  mind, 
or  to  injure  a  character  so  well  established  as  yours?  Take 
care,  Sir  William,  how  you  indulge  this  unruly  temper,  lest 
the  world  should  suspect  that  conscience  has  some  share  in 
your  resentments.  You  have  more  to  fear  from  the  treachery 
of  your  own  passions,  than  from  any  malevolence  of  mine. 

I  believe,  Sir,  you  will  never  know  me.  A  considerable 
time  must  certainly  elapse  before  we  are  personally  acquaint- 
ed. You  need  not,  however,  regret  the  delay,  or  suffer  an 
apprehension  that  any  length  of  time  can  restore  you  to  the 
Christian  meekness  of  your  temper,  and  disappoint  your 
present  indignation.  If  I  understand  your  character,  there  is 
in  your  own  breast  a  repository,  in  which  your  resentments 
may  be  safely  laid  up  for  future  occasions,  and  preserved 
without  the  hazard  of  diminution.  The  Odia  in  longum  ja- 
ciens,  quce  reconderet,  auctaque  promeret,  I  thought  had  only 
belonged  to  the  worst  character  of  antiquity.  The  text  is  in 
Tacitus; — you  know  best  where  to  look  for  the  commentary. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXVI. 

A  WORD  AT    PARTING  TO  JUNIUS. 

*Sir,  7  October,  1769. 

As  you  have  not  favoured  me  with  either  of  the  explana 
tloriH  demanded  of  you,  I  can  have  nothing  more  to  say  to 
you  upon  my  own  account.  Your  mercy  to  me,  or  tender- 
ness for  yourself,  has  been  very  great.  The  public  will  judge 

*  Measures  and  tint  men  is  the  common  cant  of  affected  moderation; — z 
base,  counterfeit  language,  fabricated  by  knaves,  and  made  current  among 
fools.  Such  gentle  censure  is  not  fitted  to  the  present,  degenerate  state  of 
society.  What  does  it  avail  to  expose  the  absurd  contrivance,  or  pernicious 

tendenc* 


l&)  LETTERS  OF 

of  your  motives.  If  your  excess  of  modesty  forbids  vou  to 
produce  either  the  proofs  or  yourself,  I  will  excuse  it.  lake 
courage;  I  have  not  the  temper  of  Tiberius,  any  more  than 
the  rank  or  power.  You,  indeed,  are  a  tyrant  of  another  sort, 
and  upon  your  political  bed  of  torture  can  excruciate  any 
subject,  from  a  first  minister  down  to  such  a  grub  or  butterfly 
as  myself;  like  another  detested  tyrant  of  antiquity,  can  make 
the  wretched  sufferer  fit  the  bed,  if  the  bed  will  not  fit  the 
sufferer,  by  disjointing  or  tearing  the  trembling  limbs  until 
they  are  stretched  to  its  extremity.  But  courage,  constancy, 
and  patience,  under  torments,  have  sometimes  caused  the 
most  hardened  monsters  to  relent,  and  forgive  the  object  of 
their  cruelty.  You,  Sir,  are  determined  to  try  all  that  human 
nature  can  endure,  until  she  expires:  else,  was  it  possible  that 
vou  could  be  the  author  of  that  most  inhuman  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Bedford?  I  have  read  it  with  astonishment  and 
horror.  Where,  Sir,  where  were  the  feelings  of  your  own 
heart,  when  you  could  upbraid  a  most  affectionate  father  with 
the  loss  of  his  only  and  most  amiable  son?  Read  over  again 
those  cruel  lines  of  yours,  and  let  them  wring  your  very  soul! 
Cannot  political  questions  be  discussed  without  descending 
to  the  most  odious  personalties?  Must  you  go  wantonly  out 
of  your  way  to  torment  declining  age,  because  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  may  have  quarrelled  with  those  whose  cause  and 
Dolitics  you  espouse?  For  shame!  for  shame!  As  you  have 
spoke  daggers  to  him,  you  may  justly  dread  the  use  of  them 
against  your  own  breast,  did  a  want  of  courage,  or  of  noble 
sentiments,  stimulate  him  to  such  mean  revenge.  He  is  above 

tendency  of  measures,  if  the  man  who  advises  or  executes,  shall  be  suf- 
fered not  only  to  escape  with  impunity,  but  even  to  preserve  his  power, 
and  insult  us  with  the  favour  of  his  Sovereign!  I  would  recommend  to  the 
reader  the  whole  of  Mr.  Pope's  letter  to  Doctor  Arbuthnot,  dated  26 
July,  1734,  from  which  the  following'  is  an  extract.  "  To  reform  and  not  to 
chastise  I  am  afraid  is  impossible;  and  that  the  best  precepts,  as  well  as 
the  best  laws,  would  prove  of  small  use,  if  there  were  no  examples  to  en- 
force them.  To  attack  vices  in  the  abstract,  without  touching-  persons, 
may  be  safe  fighting1  indeed,  but  it  is  fighting  with  shadows.  My  greatest 
comfort  and  encouragement  to  proceed,  has  been  to  see  that  th.  se  who 
have  no  shame,  and  no  fear  of  any  thing  else,  have  appeared  touched  by 
my  satires." 


JUNIUS.  161 

it;  he  is  brave.  Do  you  fancy  that  your  own  base  arts  have 
infected  our  whole  island?  But  your  own  reflections,  vour 
own  conscience,  must  and  will,  if  you  have  any  spark  of  hu- 
manity remaining,  give  him  most  ample  vengeance.  Not  all 
the  power  of  words  with  which  you  are  so  graced,  will  ever 
wash  out,  or  even  palliate  this  foul  blot  in  your  character.  I 
have  not  time  at  present  to  dissect  your  letter  so  minutely  as 
I  could  wish,  but  I  will  be  bold  enough  to  say,  that  it  is  (as 
to  reason  and  argument)  the  most  extraordinary  piece  of 
florid  impotence  that  was  ever  imposed  upon  the  eyes  and 
ears  of  the  too  credulous  and  deluded  mob.  It  accuses  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  of  high  treason.  Upon  what  foundation? 
You  tell  us,  u  that  the  Duke's  pecuniary  character  makes  it 
more  than  probable,  that  he  could  not  have  made  such  sacri- 
fices at  the  peace,  without  some  private  compensations;  that 
his  conduct  carried  with  it  an  interior  evidence,  beyond  all 
the  legal  proofs  of  a  court  of  justice." 

My  academical  education,  Sir,  bids  me  tell  you  that  it  is 
necessary  to  establish  the  truth  of  your  first  proposition,  be- 
fore you  presume  to  draw  inferences  from  it.  First  prove  the 
avarice,  before  you  make  the  rash,  hasty,  and  most  wicked 
conclusion.  This  father,  Junius,  whom  you  call  avaricious, 
allowed  that  son  eight  thousand  pounds  a  year.  Upon  his 
most  unfortunate  death,  which  your  usual  good-nature  took 
care  to  remind  him  of,  he  greatly  encreased  the  jointure  of 
the  afflicted  lady,  his  widow.  Is  this  avarice?  Is  this  doing- 
good  by  stealth?  It  is  upon  record. 

If  exact  order,  method,  and  true  oeconomy  as  a  master  of 
a  family;  if  splendor  and  just  magnificence,  without  wild  waste 
and  thoughtless  extravagance,  may  constitute  the  character 
of  an  avaricious  man,  the  Duke  is  guilty.  But  for  a  moment 
let  us  admit  that  an  ambassador  may  love  money  too  much; 
what  proof  do  you  give  that  he  has  taken  any  to  betray  his 
country?  Is  it  hearsay;  or  the  evidence  of  letters,  or  ocular; 
or  the  evidence  of  those  concerned  in  this  black  affair?  Pro- 
duce your  authorities  to  the  public.  It  is  a  most  impudent 
kind  of  sorcery  to  attempt  to  blind  us  with  the  smoke,  with- 
out convincing  us  that  the  fire  has  existed.  You  first  brand 

Vol.  I.  X 


162  LETTERS  OF 

him  with  a  vice  that  he  is  free  from,  to  render  him  odious 
and  suspected.  Suspicion  is  the  foul  weapon  with  which  you 
make  all  your  chief  attacks;  with  that  you  stab.  But  shall  one 
of  the  first  subjects  of  the  realm  be  ruined  in  his  fame;  shall 
even  his  life  be  in  constant  danger,  from  a  charge  built  upon 
such  sandy  foundations?  Must  his  house  be  besieged  by  law- 
less ruffians,  his  journies  impeded,  and  even  the  asylum  of 
an  altar  be  insecure,  from  assertions  so  base  and  false?  Po- 
tent as  he  is,  thi  Duke  is  amenable  to  justice;  if  guilty,  pun- 
ishable. The  parliament  is  the  high  and  solemn  tribunal  for 
matters  of  such  great  moment.  To  that  be  they  submitted. 
But  I  hope  also  that  some  notice  will  be  taken  of,  and  some 
punishment  inflicted  upon,  false  accusers,  especially  upon 
such,  Junius,  who  are  wilfully  false.  In  any  truth  I  will 
agree  even  with  Junius;  will  agree  with  him  that  it  is  highly 
unbecoming  the  dignity  of  Peers  to  tamper  with  boroughs. 
Aristocracy  is  as  fatal  as  democracy.  Our  constitution  ad- 
mits of  neither.  It  loves  a  King,  Lords,  and  Commons 
really  chosen  by  the  unbought  suffrages  of  a  free  people. 
But  if  corruption  only  shifts  hands;  if  the  wealthy  commoner 
gives  the  bribe,  instead  of  the  potent  Peer,  is  the  state  better 
served  by  this  exchange?  Is  the  real  emancipation  of  the 
borough  affected,  because  new  parchment  bonds  may  possi- 
bly supersede  the  old?  To  say  the  truth,  wherever  such  prac- 
tices prevail,  they  are  equally  criminal  to  and  destructive  of 
our  freedom. 

The  rest  of  your  declamation  is  scarce  worth  considering, 
excepting  for  the  elegance  of  the  language.  Like  Hamlet  in 
the  play,  you  produce  two  pictures:  you  tell  us,  that  one  is 
not  like  the  Duke  of  Bedford;  then  you  bring  a  most  hideous 
caricatura,  and  tell  us  of  the  resemblance;  but  mult  urn  abludit 
imago. 

All  your  long  tedious  accounts  of  the  ministerial  quarrels, 
and  the  intrigues  of  the  cabinet,  are  reducible  to  a  few  short 
lines;  and  to  convince  you,  sir,  that  I  do  not  mean  to  flatterany 
minister,  either  past  or  present,  these  are  my  thoughts:  they 
seem  to  have  acted  like  lovers,  or  children;  have  pouted, 


JUNIUS.  163 

quarrelled,  cried,  kissed,  and  been  friends  again^;  as  the  ob- 
jects of  desire,  the  ministerial  rattles  have  been  put  into  their 
hands.  But  such  proceedings  are  very  unworthy  of  the  gra- 
vity and  dignity  of  a  great  nation.  We  do  not  want  men  of 
abilities;  but  we  have  wanted  steadiness;  we  want  unanimity: 
your  letters,  Junius,  will  not  contribute  thereto.  You  may 
one  day  expire  by  a  flame  of  your  own  kindling.  But  it  is 
my  humble  opinion  that  lenity  and  moderation,  pardon  and 
oblivion,  will  disappoint  the  efforts  of  all  the  seditious  in  the 
land,  and  extinguish  their  wide  spreading  fires.  I  have  lived 
with  this  sentiment;  with  this  I  shall  die. 

WILLIAM  DRAPERf. 


LETTER  XXVII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  13  October,  1769. 

If  Sir  William  Draper's  bed  be  a  bed  of  torture,  he  has 
made  it  for  himself.  I  shall  never  interrupt  his  repose.  Hav- 
ing changed  the  subject,  there  are  parts  of  his  last  letter  not 
undeserving  of  a  reply.  Leaving  his  private  character  and 
conduct  out  of  the  question,  I  shall  consider  him  merely  in 
the  capacity  of  an  author,  whose  labours  certainly  do  no  dis- 
credit to  a  newspaper. 

We  say,  in  common  discourse,  that  a  man  may  be  his  own 
enemy,  and  the  frequency  of  the  fact  makes  the  expression 

*  Sir  William  gives  us  a  pleasant  account  of  men,  who,  in  his  opinion  at 
least,  are  best  qualified  to  govern  an  empire. 

f  A  few  clays  subsequent  to  the  publication  of  this  letter,  a  report  was 
circulated,  that  Sir  William  Draper,  in  consequence  of  his  defence  of 
Lord  Granby,  had  been  appointed  to  a  governorship  in  America,  which 
Sir  William  contradicted,  in  the  following  short  note,  addressed  to  the 
Printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  Oct.  20,  1769. 
"Sir, 

'*  You  are  desired  to  contradict  the  report  that  Sir  William  Draper  is 
appointed  a  governor  in  America  The  story  lias  been  raised  to  make  the 
public  believe  that  he  has  endeavoured  to  vindicate  those  whom  he  knows 
to  have  been  most  infamously  traduced  for  the  sake  of  a  reward.  His  mo- 
tive for  this  voyage  is  entirely  curiosity.  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
politics  of  this  ministry,  or  any  other  set  of  men  whosoever."  Edit. 


164  LETTERS  OF 

intelligible.  But  that  a  man  should  be  the  bitterest  eneim 
of  his  friends,  implies  a  contradiction  of  a  peculiar  nature! 
There  is  something  in  it  which  cannot  be  conceived  without 
a  confusion  of  ideas,  nor  expressed  without  a  solecism  in 
language.  Sir  William  Draper  is  still  that  fatal  friend  Lord 
Granbv  found  him.  Yet  I  am  ready  to  do  justice  to  his  ge- 
nerosity; if  indeed  it  be  not  something  more  than  generous, 
to  be  the  voluntary  advocate  of  men,  who  think  themselves 
injured  by  his  assistance,  and  to  consider  nothing  in  the  cause 
he  adopts,  but  the  difficulty  of  defending  it.  I  thought  how- 
ever he  had  been  better  read  in  the  history  of  the  human 
heart,  than  to  compare  or  confound  the  tortures  of  the  body 
with  those  of  the  mind.  If  conscience  plays  the  tyrant,  it  would 
be  greatly  for  the  benefit  of  the  world  that  she  were  more 
arbitrary,  and  far  less  placable,  than  some  men  find  her. 

But  it  seems  I  have  outraged  the  feelings  of  a  father's 
heart. — Am  I  indeed  so  injudicious?  Does  Sir  William 
Draper  think  I  would  have  hazarded  my  credit  with  a  gene- 
rous nation,  by  so  gross  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  humanity? 
Does  he  think  I  am  so  little  acquainted  with  the  first  and 
noblest  characteristic  of  Englishmen?  Or  how  will  he  recon- 
cile such  folly  with  an  understanding  so  full  of  artifice  as 
mine?  Had  he  been  a  father,  he  would  have  been  but  little 
offended  with  the  severity  of  the  reproach,  for  his  mind 
would  have  been  filled  with  the  justice  of  it.  He  would  have 
seen  that  I  did  not  insult  the  feelings  of  a  father,  but  the  fa- 
ther who  felt  nothing.  He  would  have  trusted  to  the  evidence 
of  his  own  paternal  heart,  and  boldly  denied  the  possibility  of 
the  fact,  instead  of  defending  it.  Against  whom  then  will 
his  honest  indignation  be  directed,  when  I  assure  him,  that 
this  whole  town  beheld  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  conduct,  upon 
the  death  of  his  son,  with  horror  and  astonishment.  Sir 
William  Draper  does  himself  but  little  honour  in  opposing 
the  general  sense  of  his  country.  The  people  are  seldom 
wrong  in  their  opinions, — in  their  sentiments  they  are  never 
mistaken.  There  may  be  a  vanity  perhaps  in  a  singular  way 
of  thinking; — but  when  a  man  professes  a  want  of  those  feel- 
ings, which  do  honour  to  the  multitude,  he  hazards  some- 


JUNIUS.  165 

thing  infinitely  more  important  than  the  character  of  his  un- 
derstanding. After  all,  as  Sir  William  may  possibly  be  in 
earnest  in  his  anxiety  for  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  I  should  be 
glad  to  relieve  him  from  it.  He  may  rest  assured  this  wor- 
thy nobleman  laughs,  with  equal  indifference,  at  my  re- 
proaches, and  Sir  William's  distress  about  him.  But  here 
let  it  stop.  Even  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  insensible  as  he  is, 
will  consult  the  tranquillity  of  his  life,  in  not  provoking  the 
moderation  of  my  temper.  If,  from  the  profoundest  contempt, 
I  should  ever  rise  into  anger,  he  should  soon  find,  that  all  I 
have  already  said  of  him  was  lenity  and  compassion*. 

Out  of  a  long  catalogue,  Sir  William  Draper  has  confined 
himself  to  the  refutation  of  two  charges  only.  The  rest  he 
had  not  time  to  discuss;  and  indeed  it  would  have  been  a 
laborious  undertaking.  To  draw  up  a  defence  of  such  a 
series  of  enormities,  would  have  required  a  life  at  least  as 
long  as  that,  which  has  been  uniformly  employed  in  the  prac- 
tice of  them.  The  public  opinion  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford's 
extreme  ceconomy  is,  it  seems,  entirely  without  foundation. 
Though  not  very  prodigal  abroad,  in  his  own  family  at  least, 
he  is  regular  and  magnificent.  He  pays  his  debts,  abhors  a 
beggar,  and  makes  a  handsome  provision  for  his  son.  His 
charity  has  improved  upon  the  proverb,  and  ended  where  it 
began.  Admitting  the  whole  force  of  this  single  instance  of 
his  domestic  generosity  (wonderful  indeed,  considering  the 
narrowness  of  his  fortune,  and  the  little  merit  of  his  only 
son)  the  public  may  still  perhaps  be  dissatisfied,  and  demand 
some  other  less  equivocal  proofs  of  his  munificence.  Sir 
William  Draper  should  have  entered  boldly  into  the  de- 
tail— of  indigence  relieved — of  arts  encouraged — of  science 
patronized;  men  of  learning  protected,  and  works  of  genius 
rewarded;  in  short,  had  there  been  a  single  instance,  besides 
Mr.  Rigbyf,  of  blushing  merit  brought  forward  by  the 
Duke,  for  the  service  of  the  public,  it  should  not  have  been 
omitted^:. 

*  See  Private  Letters,  No.  10. 

f  This  gentleman  is  supposed  to  have  the  same  idea  of  blushing,  that  a 
man  blind  from  his  birth,  has  of  a  scarlet  or  sky-blue. 

t  In  answer  to  this  heavy  charge,  two  instances  of  the  noble  Duke's 

benevolence 


166  LETTERS  OF 

I  wish  it  were  possible  to  establish  my  inference  with  the 
same  certainty,  on  which  I  believe  the  principle  is  founded. 
My  conclusion  however  was  not  drawn  from  the  principle 

benevolence  were  brought  forward  in  two  separate  letters  in  the  Public 
Advertiser.  The  one  dated  Oct.  17,  and  signed  Frances,  which  states  his 
having  relieved  with  a.  patent  employment,  the  husband  of  the  writer  of  a 
series  of  sentimental  letters  of  "  Henry  and  Frances,"  in  which  the  author, 
a  Mrs.  Griffiths,  fictitiously  depicted  their  own  real  distress.  The  other 
dated  Oct  20,  and  signed  Jere.  Mears,  Lieut,  of  the  29th  Regt.  relates 
the  Duke's  generous  and  unsolicited  bestowment  upon  him  of  a  pair  of 
colours,  upon  a  knowledge,  when  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland,  of  the  writer's 
destitute  situation. 

A  much  abler  reply  to  Junius's  severe  attack  upon  his  Grace  was  af- 
terwards introduced  into  the  Public  Advertiser  in  a  letter  to  Junius  sub- 
scribed M.  Tullius,  dated  Dec.  8,  from  which  the  editor  feels  bound,  on 
the  score  of  impartiality,  to  make  the  following  extract: 

'*  In  these  strictures  I  have  principally  in  view  the  treatment  which  Ju- 
nius, in  two  publications  has  thought  proper  to  offer  to  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford. His  animadversions  on  this  illustrious  nobleman,  are  intended  to 
reflect  both  on  his  public  and  private  character.  With  regard  to  the  first 
of  these,  nothing  of  consequence  is  urged  besides  his  Grace's  conduct  r.s 
ambassador  at  the  court  of  Versailles  in  the  making  of  the  late  peace.  I 
mean  not  to  enter  here  into  the  merits  or  demerits  of  that  important  trans- 
action.  Thus  much  is  known  to  all,  the  riches  of  the  nation  were  at 

that  time  well  nigh  exhausted,  public  credit  was  on  the  brink  of  ruin,  the 
national  debt  increased  to  such  an  enormous  height  as  to  threaten  us  with 
a  sudden  and  universal  crush;  and  whatever  be  said  of  the  concessions 
that  were  made  to  bring  that  memorable  event  to  bear,  Canada  among 
other  instances,  will  ever  remain  a  glorious  monument;  the  interests  of 
this  kingdom  were  not  forgotten  in  that  negotiation:  But  Junius,  hack- 
neyed in  the  tricks  of  controversy,  where  a  man's  open  and  avowed  actions 
are  innocent,  has  the  art  to  hint  at  secret  terms  and  private  compensations; 
and  though  he  is  compelled  by  the  force  of  truth  to  own  '  no  document  of 
any  treasonable  practice  is  to  be  found,'  we  are  given  plainly  to  understand 
so  many  public  sacrifices  were  notrmide  at  that  period  without  a  valuable 
consideration,  and  that  in  practice  there  is  very  little  difference  in  the  ce- 
remony of  offering  a  bribe,  and  of  that  Duke's  accepting  it.  To  a  charge 
that  is  ailedged,  not  only  without  proof,  but  even  with  a  confession  that 
no  proof  is  to  be  expected,  no  answer  is  to  be  returned  but  that  of  a  con- 
temptuous silence.  When  a  writer  takes  upon  him  to  attack  the  character 
of  a  nobleman  of  the  highest  rank,  and  in  a  matter  of  so  capital  a  nature  as 
that  of  selling  his  country  for  a  bribe,  common  policy,  as  well  as  prudence, 
require  that  an  accusation  of  such  importance  be  supported  with  at  least 
some  show  of  evidence,  and  that  even  this  be  not  done  but  with  the  utmost 
moderation  of  temper  and  expression:  but  so  sober  a  conduct  would  have 
jeen  beside  the  purpose  of  Junius,  whose  business  it  was  not  to  reason, 

but 


JUNIUS.  1{j7 

alone.  I  am  not  so  unjust  as  to  reason  from  one  crime  to 
another;  though  I  think,  that,  of  all  the  vices,  avarice  is  most 
apt  to  taint  and  corrupt  the  heart.   I  combined  the  known 

but  rail.  The  Roman  rhetorician,  among  the  other  arts  of  oratory,  men- 
tions one,  which  he  dignifies  with  the  title  of  a  '  Canine  eloquence,'  that 
of  filling1  up  the  empty  places  of  an  argument  with  railings,  convitiis  im- 
plere  vacua  causarum-  In  the  knowledge  of  this  rule  Junius  is  without  a 
rival;  and  the  present  instance,  among  a  thousand  others,  is  a  convincing 
testimony  of  his  dexterity  in  the  application  of  it. 

"  But  here  it  will  be  said,  it  is  not  from  circumstance  and  conjecture 
alone  that  this  charge  against  the  Duke  of  Bedford  is  founded;  the  genei'al 
character  of  every  one  takes  its  colour  and  complexion  from  that  quality 
in  him  which  predominates,  and  the  allowed  avarice  of  the  man  affords 
an  evidence  not  to  be  resisted  of  the  rapacity  of  the  ambassador:  and  is  it 
then  so  incontestible  a  point  that  the  Duke  is  indeed  the  sordid  man  which 
Junius  has  delineated!  are  there  no  instances  to  be  produced  that  denote 
a  contrary  disposition?  one  would  think  if  a  vicious  thirst  of  gain  had  borne 
so  large  a  share,  as  is  pretended,  in  his  Grace's  composition,  this  would 
have  discovered  itself  in  the  pecuniary  emoluments  he  had  secured  for 
himself  when  he  engaged  in  a  share  of  Government.  But  what  advantages 
of  this  kind  has  he  obtained;  or  to  what  bargains  with  the  minister  does 
Junius  allude,  when  he  knows,  that  his  Grace,  though  willing  to  assist 
the  friends  of  Administration  with  his  interest  and  weight,  has  not  accept- 
ed any  department  either  of  power  or  profit?  had  Junius  and  candour  not 
shaken  hands,  this  circumstance  alone  would  have  afforded  him  an  evi- 
dence beyond  all  the  legal  proofs  of  a  court  of  justice,  of  the  iniquity  of 
his  own  insinuations.  But  we  are  not  at  a  loss  for  other  instances,  and 
those  no  ordinary  ones,  of  the  Duke's  munificence.  To  what  principle  shall 
we  attribute  the  payment  of  the  elder  Brother's  debts  to  the  amount  of 
not  much  less  than  one  hundred  thousand  pounds?  the  splendid  provision 
he  marie  for  his  unfortunate  son;  and  afterwards  for  that  son's  more  unfortu- 
nate Widow?  what  shall  we  say  to  his  known  attachments  to  the  interests 
of  his  friends,  his  kindness  to  his  domestics,  and  annual  bounty  to  those 
who  have  served  him  faithfully?  his  indulgence  to  his  dependants?  or  what 
are,  if  these  be  not,  unequivocal  proofs  of  genuine  liberality  and  benevo- 
lence? 

"  When  to  these  symptoms  of  an  enlarged  and  generous  mind,  we  add 
what  are  equally  constituent  parts  of  his  Grace's  character,  the  decency 
and  decorum  of  his  conduct  in  private  life,  his  regularity  in  his  family,  and 
what  is  now  so  rare  a  virtue  among  the  great,  his  constant  attendance  on 
all  the  public  offices  of  Divine  Worship,  we  shall  hardly  find  in  the  whole 
circle  of  the  nobility  a  man  that  has  a  juster  and  much  more  than  a  consti- 
tutional claim  to  respect,  or  one  that  less  deserved  the  censures  of  a  satir- 
ist, such  as  Junius,  than  his  Grace  of  Bedford.  But  in  the  reflections  of 
Junius  there  is  a  more  surprising  piece  of  profligacy  yet  behind.  As  if  all 
the  former  instances  of  his  malignity  had  been  too  little,  he  has  filled  up 

the 


168  LETTERS  OF 

temper  of  the  man  with  the  extravagant  concessions  made 
by  the  ambassador;  and  though  I  doubt  not  sufficient  care 
was  taken  to  leave  no  document  of  any  treasonable  negotia- 
ble measure  of  his  crimes  by  calling  back  to  our  remembrance  the  loss, 
which,  not  the  father  alone,  but  the  kingdom  sustained  in  the  death  of  his 
only  son,  and  to  reproach  him  for  the  insensibility  he  supposes  him  to  have 
discovered,  on  that  affecting  occasion.  The  cruelty  of  this  accusation  is 
only  to  be  paralleled  by  the  falsehood  of  it,  and  in  a  better  age  than  the 
present  would  have  been  deemed  a  prodigy.  To  one  who  possessed  the 
proper  sentiments  of  a  man,  the  dwelling  at  all  on  a  calamity  which  is  still 
so  recent,  which  in  all  its  circumstances  was  so  truly  pitiable,  would  have 
appeared  in  the  highest  degree  ungenerous  and  mean;  but  to  represent  the 
principal  sufFerer  in  this  scene  of  woe  as  the  only  one  not  sensible  of  his 
misfortune;  to  paint  a  Father  destitute  of  a  Father's  love,  and  even  profess- 
ing a  want  of  those  feelings  which  do  honour  to  the  multitude,  is  an  in- 
stance of  barbarity  of  which  a  savage  would  have  been  ashamed,  and  which 
no  prettiness  of  stile,  no  powers  of  language,  no  literary  merit,  can  ever 
excuse  or  expiate:  and  indeed,  corrupt  as  the  times  are  said  to  be,  I  have 
the  satisfaction  to  observe  Junius  for  once  has  reckoned  without  his  host, 
and  mistaken  the  taste  and  temper  of  his  countrymen:  we  can  allow  for 
the  petulance  which  want  and  hunger  extort  from  an  opposition;  we  can 
pity  the  wretch  who  is  obliged  to  draw  his  venal  quill,  and  say  and  unsay 
as  is  dictated  to  him  by  his  superiors:  but  we  are  not  yet  so  far  gone  in  the 
road  to  ruin,  or  dead  to  all  the  movements  of  compassion,  as  to  behold 
without  abhorrence  the  man,  who  can  so  totally  resign  all  pretences  to 
humanity,  or  regard  him  in  any  other  light  than  as  the  object  of  general 
deteetation. 

"  J  unius  in  his  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford  amuses  himself  with  de- 
scribing in  Theory  the  dignity  and  importance  of  an  independent  noble- 
man: by  way  of  conclusion  to  these  remarks,  I  shall  delineate  for  him  in 
return,  what  I  conceive  should  be  the  character  of  one  who  sets  up  for  a 
political  writer;  and  this  in  imitation  of  his  own  method,  both  by  the  po- 
sitive and  negative  marks  which  may  be  given  of  it.  A  writer  then  of  this 
class,  though  he  will  ever  be  suspicious  of  the  conduct  of  those  in  power, 
will  be  sure  to  watcli  with  equal  jealousy  over  himself,  lest  in  his  zeal  for 
exciting  a  reasonable  love  of  liberty,  he  encourage  a  dangerous  spirit  of 
licentiousness:  he  will  be  as  cautious  of  weakening  the  constitutional  pow- 
ers of  the  prince,  as  lie  will  be  careful  of  supporting  the  undoubted  rights 
of  the  people;  and  will  expose  with  the  same  freedom,  in  their  turns,  the 
exorbitances  of  prerogative,  and  the  lawless  efforts  of  a  faction.  In  the  ne- 
gative parts  of  his  character,  he  will  not  give  occasion  to  the  most  distant 
suspicion  that  his  opposition  to  Government  proceeds  not  so  much  from  a 
dislike  to  measures,  as  to  Men:  in  times  of  real  security  he  will  not  inflame 
the  minds  of  the  populace  with  affected  apprehensions:  before  In-  com- 
plains of  grievances  he  will  be  sure  they  exist:  in  his  freest  writings  he 
vW]  never  violate  knowingly  the  laws  of  truth  and  justice:  he   will  not 

causelcsslv 


JUNIUS.  169 

tion,  I  still  maintain  that  the  conduct*  of  this  minister  car- 
ries with  it  an  internal  and  convincing  evidence  against  him. 
Sir  William  Draper  seems  not  to  know  the  value  or  force  of 
such  a  proof.  He  will  not  permit  us  to  judge  of  the  motives 
of  men,  by  the  manifest  tendency  of  their  actions,  nor  by  the 
notorious  character  of  their  minds.  He  calls  for  papers  and 
witnesses,  with  a  sort  of  triumphant  security,  as  if  nothing 
could  be  true,  but  what  could  be  proved  in  a  court  of  jus- 
tice. Yet  a  religious  man  might  have  remembered,  upon 
what  foundation  some  truths,  most  interesting  to  mankind, 
have  been  received  and  established.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
internal  evidence,  which  the  purest  of  religions  carries  with 
it,  what  would  have  become  of  his  once  well-quoted  deca- 
logue, and  of  the  meekness  of  his  Christianity? 

The  generous  warmth  of  his  resentment  makes  him  con- 
found the  order  of  events.  He  forgets  that  the  insults  and 
distresses  which  the  Duke  of  13edford  has  suffered,  and 
which  Sir  William  has  lamented  with  many  delicate  touches 
of  the  true  pathetic,  were  only  recorded  in  my  letter  to  his 
Grace,  not  occasioned  by  it.  It  was  a  simple,  candid  narra- 
tive of  facts;  though,  for  aught  I  know,  it  may  carry  with  it 
something  prophetic.  His  Grace  undoubtedly  has  received 
several  ominous  hints;  and  I  think,  in  certain  circumstances, 
a  wise  man  would  do  well  to  prepare  himself  for  the  event. 

But  I  have  a  charge  of  a  heavier  nature  against  Sir  Wil- 
liam Draper.  He  tells  us  that  the  Duke  of  Bedford  is  amena- 
ble to  justice; — that  parliament  is  a  high  and  solemn  tribu- 
nal; and  that,  if  guilty,  he  may  be  punished  by  due  course  of 

causelessly  expose  the  follies  of  youth,  the  infirmities  of  age,  or  the  irre- 
gularities of  private  life,  in  which  the  public  interests  are  not  concerned: 
he  will  be  restrained  by  a  sense  of  honour  from  calumniating  the  innocent, 
or  satirising  the  unhappy:  in  a  word,  he  will  not  take  the  advantage  of  his 
own  security  to  stab  in  the  dark,  or  with  Solomon's  fool,  divert  himself 
with  holding  out  the  most  respectable  characters  as  objects  of  contempt 
and  ridicule,  and  say  am  not  I  in  sport?"  Edit. 

*  If  Sir  \V  D.  will  take  the  trouble  of  looking  into  Torcy's  Memoirs, 
he  will  see  with  what  little  ceremony  a  bribe  may  be  offered  to  a  Duke, 
and  with  what  little  ceremony  it  was  only  not  accepted.  Author. 

It  is  too  generally  known  to  need  further  explanation  that  the  first  Duke 
of  Marlborough  is  the  nobleman  here  referred  to.  Edit 

Vol.  I.  Y 


170  LETTERS  OF 

law;  and  all  this,  he  says  with  as  much  gravity,  as  if  he  be- 
lieved every  word  of  the  matter.  I  hope  indeed,  the  day  of 
impeachments  will  arrive,  before  this  nobleman  escapes  out 
of  life;  but  to  refer  us  to  that  mode  of  proceeding  now,  with 
such  a  ministry,  and  such  a  house  of  commons  as  the  pre- 
sent, what  is  it,  but  an  indecent  mockery  of  the  common 
sense  of  the  nation?  I  think  he  might  have  contented  him- 
self with  defending  the  greatest  enemy,  without  insulting 
the  distresses  of  his  country. 

His  concluding  declaration  of  his  opinion,  with  respect  to 
the  present  condition  of  affairs,  is  too  loose  and  undeter- 
mined to  be  of  any  service  to  the  public.  How  strange  it  is 
that  this  gentleman  should  dedicate  so  much  time  and  argu- 
ment to  the  defence  of  worthless  or  indifferent  characters, 
while  he  gives  but  seven  solitary  lines  to  the  only  subject, 
which  can  deserve  his  attention,  or  do  credit  to  his  abilities. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXVIII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  20  October,  1769. 

I  very  sincerely  applaud  the  spirit  with  which  a  lady  has 
paid  the  debt  of  gratitude  to  her  benefactor*.  Though  I 
think  she  has  mistaken  the  point,  she  shews  a  virtue  which 
makes  her  respectable.  The  question  turned  upon  the  per- 
sonal generosity  or  avarice  of  a  man,  whose  private  fortune 
is  immense.  The  proofs  of  his  munificence  must  be  drawn 
from  the  uses  to  which  he  has  applied  that  fortune.  I  was 
not  speaking  of  a  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  but  of  a  rich 
English  duke,  whose  wealth  gave  him  the  means  of  doing 
as  much  good  in  this  country,  as  he  derived  from  his  power 
in  another.  I  am  far  from  wishing  to  lessen  the  merit  of  this 
single  benevolent  action; — perhaps  it  is  the  more  conspicu- 
ous from  standing  alone.  All  I  mean  to  say  is,  that  it  provec 
nothing  in  the  present  argument. 

JUNIUS 

*  See  note  to  p.  165.  Mrs.  Griffith's  letter  signed  Frances 


JUNIUS.  m 


LETTER  XXIX. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  19  October,  1769. 

I  am  well  assured  that  Junius  will  never  descend  to  a  dis- 
pute with  such  a  writer  as  Modestus  (whose  letter  appeared 
in  the  Gazetteer  of  Monday*)  especially  as  the  dispute  must 
be  chiefly  about  words.  Notwithstanding  the  partiality  of 
the  public,  it  does  not  appear  that  Junius  values  himself 
upon  any  superior  skill  in  composition,  and  I  hope  his  time 
will  always  be  more  usefully  employed  than  in  the  trifling 
refinements  of  verbal  criticism.  Modestus,  however,  shall 
have  no  reason  to  triumph  in  the  silence  and  moderation  of 
Junius.  If  he  knew  as  much  of  the  propriety  of  language, 
as  I  believe  he  does  of  the  facts  in  question,  he  would  have 
been  as  cautious  of  attacking  Junius  upon  his  composition, 
as  he  seems  to  be  of  entering  into  the  subject  of  it;  yet  after 
all,  the  last  is  the  only  article  of  any  importance  to  the 
public. 

I  do  not  wonder  at  the  unremitted  rancour  with  which 
the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  his  adherents  invariably  speak  of 
a  nation,  which  we  well  know  has  been  too  much  injured  to 
be  easily  forgiven.  But  why  must  Junius  be  an  Irishman? — 
The  absurdity  of  his  writings  betrays  him. — Waving  all  con- 
sideration of  the  insult  offered  by  Modestus  to  the  declared 
judgment  of  the  people  (they  may  well  bear  this  among  the 
rest)  let  us  follow  the  several  instances,  and  try  whether  the 
charge  be  fairly  supported. 

First  then, — the  leaving  a  man  to  enjoy  such  repose  as  he 
can  find  upon  a  bed  of  torture,  is  severe  indeed;  perhaps  too 
much  so,  when  applied  to  such  a  trifler  as  Sir  William  Dra- 
per; but  there  is  nothing  absurd  either  in  the  idea  or  expres- 
sion. Modestus  cannot  distinguish  between  a  sarcasm  and  a 
contradiction. 

*  The  gentleman  who  wrote  several  letters  under  this  signature  in  the 
Gazetteer,  and  subsequently  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  was  a  Mr.  Dalrym- 
pie,  a  Scotch  Advocate.  For  a  specimen  of  his  stile,  see  Miscellane^i0 
Letters,  No.  ixvii.  Edit 


172  LETTERS  OF 

2.  I  affirm  with  Junius,  that  it  is  the  frequency  of  the 
fact,  whi  h  alone  can  make  us  comprehend  how  a  man  can 
be  his  own  enemy.  We  should  never  arrive  at  the  complex 
idea  conveyed  by  those  words,  if  we  had  only  seen  one  or 
two  instances  of  a  man  acting  to  his  own  prejudice.  Offer 
the  proposition  to  a  child,  or  a  man  unused  to  compound  his 
ideas,  and  you  will  soon  see  how  little  either  of  them  under- 
stand you.  It  is  not  a  simple  idea  arising  from  a  single  fact, 
but  a  very  complex  idea  arising  from  many  facts  well  ob- 
served, and  accurately  compared. 

3.  Modestus  could  not,  without  great  affectation,  mistake 
the  meaning  of  Junius,  when  he  speaks  of  a  man  who  is  the 
bitterest  enemy  of  his  friends.  He  could  not  but  know,  that 
Junius  spoke,  not  of  a  false  or  hollow  friendship,  but  of  a 
real  intention  to  serve,  and  that  intention  producing  the 
worst  effects  of  enmity.  Whether  the  description  be  strictly 
applicable  to  Sir  William  Draper  is  another  question.  Ju- 
nius does  not  say  that  it  is  more  criminal  for  a  man  to  be 
the  enemy  of  his  friends  than  his  own,  though  he  might  have 
affirmed  it  with  truth.  In  a  moral  light  a  man  may  certainly 
take  greater  liberties  with  himself  than  with  another.  To 
sacrifice  ourselves  merely  is  a  weakness  we  may  indulge  in, 
if  we  think  proper,  for  we  do  it  at  our  own  hazard  and  ex- 
pence;  but,  under  the  pretence  of  friendship,  to  sport  with 
the  reputation,  or  sacrifice  the  honour  of  another,  is  some- 
thing worse  than  weakness;  and  if,  in  favour  of  the  foolisk 
intention,  we  do  not  call  it  a  crime,  we  must  allow  at  least 
that  it  arises  from  an  overweening,  busy,  meddling  impu- 
dence.— Junius  says  only,  and  he  says  truly,  that  it  is  more 
extraordinary,  that  it  involves  a  greater  contradiction  than 
the  other;  and  is  it  not  a  maxim  received  in  life,  that  in 
general  we  can  determine  more  wisely  for  others  than  for 
ourselves?  The  reason  of  it  is  so  clear  in  argument,  that  it 
hardly  wants  the  confirmation  of  experience.  Sir  William 
Draper,  I  confess,  is  an  exception  to  the  general  rule,  though 
not  much  to  his  credit. 

4.  If  this  gentleman  will  go  back  to  his  Ethics,  he  may 
perhaps  discover  the  truth  of  what  Junius  says,  that  no  out- 


JUNIUS.  173 

xvard  tyranny  can  reach  the  mind.  The  tortures  of  the  body 
may  be  introduced  by  way  of  ornament  or  illustration  to  re- 
present those  of  the  mind,  but  strictly  there  is  no  similitude 
between  them.  They  are  totally  different  both  in  their  cause 
and  operation.  The  wretch,  who  suffers  upon  the  rack,  is 
merely  passive;  but  when  the  mind  is  tortured,  it  is  not  at 
the  command  of  any  outward  power.  It  is  the  sense  of  guilt 
which  constitutes  the  punishment,  and  creates  that  torture 
with  which  the  guilty  mind  acts  upon  itself. 

5.  He  misquotes  what  Junius  says  of  conscience,  and 
makes  the  sentence  ridiculous,  by  making  it  his  own. 

So  much  for  composition.  Now  for  fact. — Junius  it  seems 
has  mistaken  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  His  Grace  had  all  the 
proper  feelings  of  a  father,  though  he  took  care  to  suppress 
the  appearance  of  them.  Yet  it  was  an  occasion,  one  would 
think,  on  which  he  need  not  have  been  ashamed  of  his  grief; 
—-on  which  less  fortitude  would  have  done  him  more  honour. 
I  can  conceive  indeed  a  benevolent  motive  for  his  endeavour- 
ing to  assume  an  air  of  tranquillity  in  his  own  family,  and  I 
wish  I  could  discover  any  thing,  in  the  rest  of  his  character, 
to  justify  my  assigning  that  motive  to  his  behaviour.  But  is 
there  no  medium?  Was  it  necessary  to  appear  abroad,  to 
ballot  at  the  India-house,  and  make  a  public  display,  though 
it  were  only  of  an  apparent  insensibility? — I  know  we  are 
treading  on  tender  ground,  and  Junius,  I  am  convinced, 
does  not  wish  to  urge  this  question  farther.  Let  the  friends 
of  the  Duke  of  Bedford  observe  that  humble  silence,  which 
becomes  their  situation.  They  should  recollect  that  there 
are  still  some  facts  in  store,  at  which  human  nature  would 
shudder.  I  shall  be  understood  by  those  whom  it  concerns, 
when  I  say  that  these  facts  go  farther  than  to  the  Duke*. 

•Within  a  fortnight  after  Lord  Tavistock's  death,  the  venerable  Ger- 
trude had  a  rout  at  Bedford-house.  The  good  Duke  (who  had  only  sixty 
thousand  pounds  a  year)  ordered  an  inventory  to  be  taken  of  his  son's 
i  wearing  apparel,  down  to  his  slippers,  sold  them  all,  and  put  the  money 
'  in  his  pocket.  The  amiable  Marchioness  shocked  at  such  brutal,  unfeeling 
avarice,  gave  the  value  of  the  clothes,  to  the  Marquis's  servant,  out  of  her 
own  purse.  That  incomparable  woman  did  not  long  survive  her  husband. 
When  she  died,  the  Duchess  of  Bedford  treated  her  as  the  Duke  had 

treatec 


174  LETTERS  OF 

It  is  not  inconsistent  to  suppose  that  a  man  may  be  quite 
indifferent  about  one  part  of  a  charge,  yet  severely  stung 
with  another,  and  though  he  feels  no  remorse,  that  he  may 
wish  to  be  revenged.  The  charge  of  insensibility  carries  a 
reproach  indeed,  but  no  danger  with  it. — Junius  has  said, 
there  are  others  who  would  assassinate*  Modestus,  knowing 
his  man,  will  not  suffer  the  insinuation  to  be  divided,  but 
fixes  it  all  upon  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 

Without  determining  upon  what  evidence  Junius  would 
choose  to  be  condemned,  I  will  venture  to  maintain,  in  oppo- 
sition to  Modestus,  or  to  Mr.  Rigby  (who  is  certainly  not 
Modestus)  or  any  other  of  the  Bloomsbury  gang,  that  the 
evidence  against  the  Duke  of  Bedford  is  as  strong  as  any 
presumptive  evidence  can  be.  It  depends  upon  a  combina- 
tion of  facts  and  reasoning,  which  require  no  confirmation 
from  the  anecdote  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough.  This  anec- 
dote was  referred  to  merely  to  shew  how  ready  a  great  man 
may  be  to  receive  a  great  bribe;  and  if  Modestus  could  read 
the  original,  he  would  see  that  the  expression,  only  not  ac- 
cepted, was  probably  the  only  one  in  our  language  that  ex- 
actly fitted  the  case.  The  bribe,  offered  to  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  was  not  refused. 

I  cannot  conclude  without  taking  notice  of  this  honest 
gentleman's  learning,  and  wishing  he  had  given  us  a  little 
more  of  it.  When  he  accidentally  found  himself  so  near 
speaking  truth,  it  was  rather  unfair  of  him  to  leave  out  the 
non  potuisse  refelli.  As  it  stands,  the  pudet  hcec  opprobria 
may  be  divided  equally  between  Mr.  Rigby  and  the  Duke 
of  Bedford.  Mr.  Rigby,  I  take  for  granted,  will  assert  his 
natural  right  to  the  modesty  of  the  quotation,  and  leave  all 
the  opprobrium  to  his  Grace. 

PHILO  JUNIUS. 

treated  his  only  son.  She  ordered  every  gown  and  trinket  to  be  sold,  and 
pocketed  the  money. — These  are  the  monsters,  whom  Sir  William  Dra- 
per conies  forward  to  defend. — May  God  protect  me  from  doing  anything 
that  may  require  such  defence,  or  deserve  such  friendship.   Author. 

The  Marquis  of  Tavistock,  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  only  soil,  who  was 
killed  as  already  related,  by  a  fall  from  his  horse,  had  married  the  sister 
(if  the  late  Earl  of  Albemarle.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  175 


LETTER  XXX. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  1/ October,  1769. 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  the  great  cause,  in  which  this 
country  is  engaged,  should  have  roused  and  engrossed  the 
whole  attention  of  the  people.  I  rather  admire  the  generous 
spirit,  with  which  they  feel  and  assert  their  interest  in  this 
important  question,  than  blame  them  for  their  indifference 
about  any  other.  When  the  constitution  is  openly  invaded, 
when  the  first  original  right  of  the  people,  from  which  all 
laws  derive  their  authority,  is  directly  attacked,  inferior 
grievances  naturally  lose  their  force,  and  are  suffered  to  pass 
by  without  punishment  or  observation.  The  present  minis- 
try are  as  singularly  marked  by  their  fortune,  as  by  their 
crimes.  Instead  of  atoning  for  their  former  conduct  by  any 
wise  or  popular  measure,  they  have  found,  in  the  enormity 
ofone  fact,  a  cover  and  defence  for  a  series  of  measures, 
which  must  have  been  fatal  to  any  other  administration.  I 
fear  we  are  too  remiss  in  observing  the  whole  of  their  pro- 
ceedings. Struck  with  the  principal  figure,  we  do  not  suffi- 
ciently mark  in  what  manner  the  canvass  is  filled  up.  Yet 
surely  it  is  not  a  less  crime,  nor  less  fatal  in  its  consequences. 
to  encourage  a  flagrant  breach  of  the  law  by  a  military  force, 
than  to  make  use  of  the  forms  of  parliament  to  destroy  the 
constitution. — The  ministry  seem  determined  to  give  us  a 
choice  of  difficulties,  and,  if  possible,  to  perplex  us  with  the. 
multitude  of  their  offences.  The  expedient  is  well  worthy  of 
the  Duke  of  Grafton.  But  though  he  has  preserved  a  grada- 
tion and  variety  in  his  measures,  we  should  remember  that 
the  principle  is  uniform.  Dictated  by  the  same  spirit,  they 
deserve  the  same  attention.  The  following  fact,  though  ot 
the  most  alarming  nature,  has  not  yet  been  clearly  stated  t& 
the  public,  nor  have  the  consequences  of  it  been  sufficiently 
understood.  Had  I  taken  it  up  at  an  earlier  period,  I  should 
have  been  accused  of  an  uncandid,  malignant  precipitation ; 
as  if  I  watched  for  an  unfair  advantage  against  the  ministry, 


176  LETTERS  OF 

and  would  not  allow  them  a  reasonable  time  to  do  their 
duty.  They  now  stand  without  excuse.  Instead  of  employ- 
ing the  leisure  they  have  had,  in  a  strict  examination  of  the 
offence,  and  punishing  the  offenders,  they  seem  to  have  con- 
sidered that  indulgence  as  a  security  to  them,  that,  with  a 
little  time  and  management,  the  whole  affair  might  be  buried 
in  silence,  and  utterly  forgotten. 

*  A  major  general  of  the  army  is  arrested  by  the  sheriff's 
officers  for  a  considerable  debtf.  He  persuades  them  to  con- 
duct him  to  the  Tilt-yard  in  St.  James's  Park,  under  some 
pretence  of  business,  which  it  imported  him  to  settle  before 
he  was  confined.  He  applies  to  a  serjeant,  not  immediately 
on  duty,  to  assist  with  some  of  his  companions  in  favouring 

*  Major  General  Gansel. 

-j-  Major  General  Gansel  was  arrested  September  21,  1769,  in  Piccadil- 
ly, for  two  thousand  pounds.  He  told  the  bailiff,  if  he  would  go  down  with 
him  to  the  Tilt-yard,  he  should  there  find  a  friend,  and  would,  on  his  not 
giving  bail,  go  with  him  to  a  spunging-house.  When  they  came  to  the 
Horse-guards,  the  officer  sent  for  a  serjeant  and  file  of  musqueteers  to  se- 
cure the  bailiff,  on  a  pretence  that  he  had  been  insulted  by  him,  which  they 
did,  while  the  prisoner  escaped.  Adjutant-general  Harvey  having  heard 
of  the  affair,  ordered  the  serjeant  and  his  men  close  prisoners  to  the  Savoy, 
and  sent  captain  Cox  to  notify  to  the  Sheriffs  the  steps  he  had  taken  in 
consequence  of  the  proceedings  of  general  Gansel,  who  had,  in  the  mean 
while,  surrendered  himself  into  custody.  In  consequence  of  the  above  cir- 
cumstance, on  the  2 1st  of  April  following,  was  issued  to  the  brigade  of 
guards,  the  Order  as  under: 

"  Parole  Hounslow, 

"  B.  O.  His  Majesty  has  signified  to  the  Field  Officer  in  waiting,  that 
he  has  been  acquainted  that  serjeant  Bacon  of  the  first  regiment,  and  ser- 
jeant Parke  of  the  Coldstream  regiment,  William  Powell,  William  Hart, 
James  Porter,  and  Joseph  Collins,  private  soldiers  in  the  first  regiment  of 
foot-guards,  were  more  or  less  concerned  in  the  rescue  of  major  general 
Gansel,  in  September  last;  the  King  hopes,  and  is  willing  to  believe,  they 
did  not  know  the  Major  General  was  arrested,  and  only  thought  they 
were  delivering  an  officer  in  distress:  however  his  Majesty  commands,  that 
they  should  be  severely  reprimanded  for  acting  in  this  business  as  they 
have  done;  and  strictly  orders  for  the  future,  that  no  commissioned  officer 
or  soldier  do  presume  to  interfere  with  bailiffs,  or  arrests,  on  any  account 
or  pretence  whatsoever,  the  crime  being  of  a  very  atrocious  nature;  and  if 
any  arc  found  guilty  of  disobeying  this  order,  they  will  be  most  severely 
punished.  This  order  to  be  read  immediately  at  the  head  of  every  com- 
pany in  the  brigade  of  guards,  that  no  man  may  plead  ignorance  for  the 
future.1"  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  177 

his  escape.  He  attempts  it.  A  bustle  ensues.  The  bailiff's 
claim  their  prisoner.  *An  officer  of  the  guards,  not  then  on 
duty,  takes  part  in  the  affair,  applies  to  the  f  lieutenant  com- 
manding the  Tilt-yard  guard,  and  urges  him  to  turn  out  his 
guard  to  relieve  a  general  officer.  The  lieutenant  declines 
interfering  in  person,  but  stands  at  a  distance,  and  suffers 
the  business  to  be  done.  The  other  officer  takes  upon  him- 
self to  order  out  the  guard.  In  a  moment  they  are  in  arms, 
quit  their  guard,  march,  rescue  the  general,  and  drive  away 
the  sheriff's  officers,  who,  in  vain  represent  their  right  to  the 
prisoner,  and  the  nature  of  the  arrest.  The  soldiers  first  con- 
duce the  general  into  their  guard  room,  then  escort  him  to  a 
place  of  safety,  with  bayonets  fixed,  and  in  all  the  forms  of 
military  triumph.  I  will  not  enlarge  upon  the  various  cir- 
cumstances which  attended  this  atrocious  proceeding.  The 
personal  injury  received  by  the  officers  of  the  law  in  the  ex- 
ecution of  their  duty,  may  perhaps  be  atoned  for  by  some 
private  compensation.  1  consider  nothing  but  the  wound, 
which  has  been  given  to  the  law  itself,  to  which  no  remedy 
has  been  applied,  no  satisfaction  made.  Neither  is  it  my  de- 
sign to  dwell  upon  the  misconduct  of  the  parties  concerned, 
any  farther  than  is  necessary  to  shew  the  behaviour  of  the 
ministry  in  its  true  light.  I  would  make  every  compassion- 
ate allowance  for  the  infatuation  of  the  prisoner,  the  false 
and  criminal  discretion  of  one  officer,  and  the  madness  of 
another.  I  would  leave  the  ignorant  soldiers  entirely  out  of 
the  question.  They  are  certainly  the  hast  guilty,  though 
they  are  the  only  persons  who  have  yet  suffered,  even  in  the 
appearance  of  punishment^.  The  fact  itself,  however  atro- 
cious, is  not  the  principal  point  to  be  considered.  It  might 
have  happened  under  a  more  regular  government,  and  with 
guards  better  disciplined  than  ours.  The  main  question  is, 
in  what  manner  have  the  ministry  acted  on  this  extraordi- 
nary occasion.  A  general  officer  calls  upon  the  king's  own 
guard,  then  actually  on  duty,  to  rescue  him  from  the  laws  of 

*  Lieutenant  Dodd.  f  Lieutenant  Garth. 

|  A  few  of  them  were  confined,  and  the  rest,  as  already  ohserved, 
reprimanded.  Edit. 

Vol.  I.  Z 


178  LETTERS  Oi 

his  country;  yet  at  this  moment  he  is  in  a  situation  no  worse, 
than  if  he  had  not  committed  an  offence,  equally  enormous 
in  a  civil  and  military  view. — A  lieutenant  upon  duty  de- 
signedly quits  his  guard,  and  suffers  it  to  be  drawn  out  by 
another  officer,  for  a  purpose,  which  he  well  knew,  (as  we 
may  collect  from  an  appearance  of  caution,  which  only  makes 
his  behaviour  the  more  criminal)  to  be  in  the  highest  de- 
gree illegal.  Has  this  gentleman  been  called  to  a  court  mar- 
tial to  answer  for  his  conduct?  No.  Has  it  been  censured? 
No.  Has  it  been  in  any  shape  inquired  into?  No. — Another 
lieutenant,  not  upon  duty,  nor  even  in  his  regimentals,  is 
daring  enough  to  order  out  the  king's  guard,  over  which  he 
had  properly  no  command,  and  engages  them  in  a  violation 
of  the  laws  of  his  country,  perhaps  the  most  singular  and 
extravagant  that  ever  was  attempted. — What  punishment 
has  he  suffered?  Literally  none.  Supposing  he  should  be 
prosecuted  at  common  law  for  the  rescue,  will  that  circum- 
stance, from  which  the  ministry  can  derive  no  merit,  excuse 
or  justify  their  suffering  so  flagrant  a  breach  of  military  dis- 
cipline to  pass  by  unpunished,  and  unnoticed?  Are  they 
aware  of  the  outrage  offered  to  their  sovereign,  when  his 
own  proper  guard  is  ordered  out  to  stop  by  main  force,  the 
execution  of  his  laws?  What  are  we  to  conclude  from  so 
scandalous  a  neglect  of  their  duty,  but  that  they  have  other 
views,  which  can  only  be  answered  by  securing  the  attach- 
ment of  the  guards?  The  minister  would  hardly  be  so  cau- 
tious of  offending  them,  if  he  did  not  mean,  in  due  time,  to 
call  for  their  assistance. 

With  respect  to  the  parties  themselves,  let  it  be  observed, 
that  these  gentlemen  are  neither  young  officers,  nor  very 
young  men.  Had  they  belonged  to  the  unfledged  race  of  en- 
signs, who  infest  our  streets,  and  dishonour  our  public  places, 
it  might  perhaps  be  sufficient  to  send  them  back  to  that  dis- 
cipline, from  which  their  parents,  judging  lightly  from  the 
maturity  of  their  vices,  had  removed  them  too  soon.  In  this 
case,  I  am  sorry  to  see,  not  so  much  the  folly  of  youth,  as 
the  spirit  of  the  corps,  and  the  connivance  of  government. 
I  do  not  question  that  there  are  many  brave  and  worthy  offi- 


JUNIUS.  179 

cers  in  the  regiments  of  guards.  But  considering  them  as  a 
corps,  I  fear  it  will  be  found  that  they  are  neither  good  sol- 
diers, nor  good  subjects.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  insinuate  the 
most  distant  reflection  upon  the  army.  On  the  contrary,  I 
honour  and  esteem  the  profession;  and  if  these  gentlemen 
were  better  soldiers,  I  am  sure  they  would  be  better  sub- 
jects. It  is  not  that  there  is  any  internal  vice  or  defect  in  the 
profession  itself,  as  regulated  in  this  country,  but  that  it  is 
the  spirit  of  this  particular  corps  to  despise  their  profession, 
and  that  while  they  vainly  assume  the  lead  of  the  army,  they 
make  it  matter  of  impertinent  comparison  and  triumph  over 
the  bravest  troops  in  the  world  (I  mean  our  marching  regi- 
ments) that  they  indeed  stand  upon  higher  ground,  and  are 
privileged  to  neglect  the  laborious  forms  of  military  disci- 
pline and  duty.  Without  dwelling  longer  upon  a  most  invi- 
dious subject,  I  shall  leave  it  to  military  men,  who  have  seen 
a  service  more  active  than  the  parade,  to  determine,  whether 
or  no  I  speak  truth. 

How  far  this  dangerous  spirit  has  been  encouraged  by  go- 
vernment, and  to  what  pernicious  purposes  it  may  be  applied 
hereafter,  well  deserves  our  most  serious  consideration.  I 
know  indeed,  that  when  this  affair  happened,  an  affectation 
of  alarm  ran  through  the  ministry.  Something  must  be  done 
to  save  appearances.  The  case  was  too  flagrant  to  be  passed 
by  absolutely  without  notice.  But  how  have  they  acted?  In- 
stead of  ordering  the  officers  concerned,  (and  who,  strictly 
speaking,  are  alone  guilty,)  to  be  put  under  arrest,  and 
brought  to  trial,  they  would  have  it  understood,  that  they 
did  their  duty  completely,  in  confining  a  serjeant  and  four 
private  soldiers,  until  they  should  be  demanded  by  the  civil 
power;  so  that  while  the  officers,  who  ordered  or  permitted 
the  thing  to  be  done,  escape  without  censure,  the  poor  men 
who  obeyed  those  orders,  who  in  a  military  view  are  no  way 
responsible  for  what  they  did,  and  who  for  that  reason  have 
been  discharged  by  the  civil  magistrates,  are  the  only  objects 
whom  the  ministry  have  thought  proper  to  expose  to  punish- 
ment. They  did  not  venture  to  bring  even  these  men  to  a 
court  martial,  because  thtv  knew  their  evidence  would  be 


180  LETTERS  Ol-' 

fatal  to  some  persons,  whom  they  were  determined  to  pro- 
tect. Otherwise,  I  doubt  not,  the  lives  of  these  unhappy, 
friendless,  soldiers,  would  long  since  have  been  sacrificed, 
without  scruple,  to  the  security  of  their  guiltv  officers. 

I  have  been  accused  of  endeavouring  to  inflame  the  pas- 
sions of  the  people. — Let  me  now  appeal  to  their  understand- 
ing. If  there  be  any  tool  of  administration  daring  enough  to 
deny  these  facts,  or  shameless  enough  to  defend  the  conduct 
of  the  ministry,  let  him  come  forward.  I  care  not  under  what 
title  he  appears.  He  shall  find  me  ready  to  maintain  the  truth 
of  my  narrative,  and  the  justice  of  my  observations  upon  it, 
at  the  hazard  of  my  utmost  credit  with  the  public. 

Under  the  most  arbitrary  governments,  the  common  ad- 
ministration of  justice  is  suffered  to  take  its  course.  The 
subject,  though  robbed  of  his  share  in  the  legislature,  is  still 
protected  by  the  laws.  The  political  freedom  of  the  English 
constitution  was  once  the  pride  and  honour  of  an  English- 
man. The  civil  equality  of  the  laws  preserved  the  property, 
and  defended  the  safety  of  the  subject.  Are  these  glorious 
privileges  the  birthright  of  the  people,  or  are  we  only  tenants 
at  the  will  of  the  ministry? — But  that  I  know  there  is  a  spirit 
of  resistance  in  the  hearts  of  my  countrymen,  that  they  value 
life,  not  by  its  conveniences,  but  by  the  independence  and 
dignity  of  their  condition,  I  should,  at  this  moment,  appeal 
only  to  their  discretion.  I  should  persuade  them  to  banish 
from  their  minds  all  memory  of  what  we  were;  I  should  tell 
them  this  is  not  a  time  to  remember  that  we  were  English- 
men; and  give  it  as  my  last  advice,  to  make  some  early 
agreement  with  the  minister,  that  since  it  has  pleased  him  to 
rob  us  of  those  political  rights,  which  once  distinguished  the 
inhabitants  of  a  country,  where  honour  was  happiness,  he 
would  leave  us  at  least  the  humble,  obedient  security  of 
citizens,  and  graciously  condescend  to  protect  us  in  our 
submission. 

JUNIUS. 


JUNIUS.  181 


LETTER  XXXI. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  14  November,  1769. 

The  variety  of  remarks,  which  have  been  made  upon  the 
last  letter  of  Junius,  and  my  own  opinion  of  the  Writer,  who, 
whatever  may  be  his  faults,  is  certainly  not  a  weak  man,  have 
induced  me  to  examine,  with  some  attention,  the  subject  of 
that  letter.  I  could  not  persuade  myself  that,  while  he  had 
plenty  of  important  materials,  he  would  have  taken  up  a 
light  or  trifling  occasion  to  attack  the  Ministry;  much  less 
could  I  conceive  that  it  was  his  intention  to  ruin  the  officers 
concerned  in  the  rescue  of  general  Gansel,  or  to  injure  the 
general  himself.  These  are  little  objects,  and  can  no  way 
contribute  to  the  great  purposes  he  seems  to  have  in  view, 
by  addressing  himself  to  the  public. — Without  considering 
the  ornamented  stile  he  has  adopted,  I  determined  to  look 
farther  into  the  matter,  before  I  decided  upon  the  merits  of 
his  letter.  The  first  step  I  took  was  to  inquire  into  the  truth 
of  the  facts;  for  if  these  were  either  false  or  misrepresented, 
the  most  artful  exertion  of  his  understanding,  in  reasoning 
upon  them,  would  only  be  a  disgrace  to  him. — Now,  Sir,  I 
have  found  every  circumstance  stated  by  Junius  to  be  lite- 
rally true.  General  Gansel  persuaded  the  bailiffs  to  conduct 
him  to  the  parade,  and  certainly  solicited  a  corporal  and  other 
soldiers  to  assist  him  in  making  his  escape.  Captain  Dodd 
did  certainly  apply  to  captain  Garth  for  the  assistance  of  his 
guard.  Captain  Garth  declined  appearing  himself,  but  stood 
aloof,  while  the  other  took  upon  him  to  order  out  the  King's 
guard,  and  by  main  force  rescued  the  general.  It  is  also 
strictly  true,  that  the  general  was  escorted  by  a  file  of  mus- 
queteers  to  a  place  of  security. — These  are  facts,  Mr.  Wood- 
fall,  which  I  promise  you  no  gentleman  in  the  guards  will 
deny.  If  all  or  any  of  them  are  false,  why  are  they  not  con- 
tradicted by  the  parties  themselves?  However  secure  against 
military  censure,  they  have  yet  a  character  to  lose,  and  sure- 


18^  LETTERS  OF 

ly,  if  they  are  innocent,  it  is  not  beneath  them  to  pay  some 
attention  to  the  opinion  of  the  public. 

The  force  of  Junius's  observations  upon  these  facts  can- 
not be  better  marked,  than  by  stating  and  refuting  the  objec- 
tions which  have  been  made  to  them.  One  writer  says,  *'  Ad- 
mitting the  officers  have  offended,  they  are  punishable  at 
common  law,  and  will  you  have  a  British  subject  punished 
twice  for  the  same  offence?" — I  answer  that  they  have  com- 
mitted two  offences,  both  very  enormous,  and  violated  two 
laws.  The  rescue  is  one  offence,  the  flagrant  breach  of  dis- 
cipline another,  and  hitherto  it  does  not  appear  that  they  have 
been  punished,  or  even  censured  for  either.  Another  gen- 
tleman lays  much  stress  upon  the  calamity  of  the  case,  and, 
instead  of  disproving  facts,  appeals  at  once  to  the  compas- 
sion of  the  public.  This  idea,  as  well  as  the  insinuation  that 
depriving  the  parties  of  their  commissions  would  be  an  injury 
to  their  creditors,  can  only  refer  to  general  Gansel.  The 
other  officers  are  in  no  distress,  therefore,  have  no  claim  to 
compassion,  nor  does  it  appear  that  their  creditors,  if  they 
have  any,  are  more  likely  to  be  satisfied  by  their  continuing 
in  the  guards.  But  this  sort  of  plea  will  not  hold  in  any 
shape.  Compassion  to  an  offender,  who  has  grossly  violated 
the  laws,  is  in  effect  a  cruelty  to  the  peaceable  subject  who 
has  observed  them;  and,  even  admitting  the  force  of  any  al- 
leviating circumstances,  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that,  in  this 
instance,  the  royal  compassion  has  interposed  too  soon.  The 
legal  and  proper  mercy  of  a  King  of  England  may  remit  the 
punishment,  but  ought  not  to  stop  the  trial. 

Besides  these  particular  objections,  there  has  been  a  cry 
raised  against  Junius  for  his  malice  and  injustice  in  attack- 
ing the  ministry  upon  an  event,  which  they  could  neither 
hinder  nor  foresee.  This,  I  must  affirm,  is  a  false  representa- 
tion of  his  argument.  He  lays  no  stress  upon  the  event  itself, 
as  a  ground  of  accusation  against  the  ministry,  but  dwells 
entirely  upon  their  subsequent  conduct.  He  does  not  say 
that  they  are  answerable  for  the  offence,  but  for  the  scanda- 
lous neglect  of  their  duty,  in  suffering  an  offence,  so  flagrant, 
to  pass  bv  without  notice  or  inquiry.  Supposing  them  eve; 


JUNIUS.  183 

so  regardless  of  what  they  owe  to  the  public,  and  as  indiffe- 
rent about  the  opinion  as  they  are  about  the  interests  of  their 
country,  what  answer,  as  officers  of  the  crown,  will  they  give 
to  Junius,  when  he  asks  them,  Are  they  aware  of  the  out- 
rage offered  to  their  Sovereign,  when  his  own  proper  guard 
is  ordered  out  to  stop,  by  main  force,  the  execution  of  his  laws? 
— And  when  we  see  a  ministry  giving  such  a  strange  unac- 
countable protection  to  the  officers  of  the  guards,  is  it  unfair 
to  suspect,  that  they  have  some  secret  and  unwarrantable 
motives  for  their  conduct?  If  they  feel  themselves  injured 
by  such  a  suspicion,  why  do  they  not  immediately  clear 
themselves  from  it,  by  doing  their  duty?  For  the  honour  of 
the  guards,  I  cannot  help  expressing  another  suspicion,  that, 
if  the  commanding  officer  had  not  received  a  secret  injunc- 
tion to  the  contrary,  he  would,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  his 
business,  have  applied  for  a  court  martial  to  try  the  two 
subalterns;  the  one  for  quitting  his  guard; — the  other  for 
taking  upon  him  the  command  of  the  guard,  and  employing 
it  in  the  manner  he  did.  I  do  not  mean  to  enter  into  or  defend 
the  severity,  with  which  Junius  treats  the  guards.  On  the 
contrary,  I  will  suppose,  for  a  moment,  that  they  deserve  a 
very  different  character.  If  this  be  true,  in  what  light  will 
they  consider  the  conduct  of  the  two  subalterns,  but  as  a 
general  reproach  and  disgrace  to  the  whole  corps?  And  will 
they  not  wish  to  see  them  censured  in  a  military  way,  if  it 
were  only  for  the  credit  and  discipline  of  the  regiment. 

Upon  the  whole,  Sir,  the  ministry  seem  to  me  to  have 
taken  a  very  improper  advantage  of  the  good-nature  of  the 
public,  whose  humanity,  they  found,  considered  nothing  in 
this  affair  but  the  distress  of  general  Gansel.  They  would 
persuade  us  that  it  was  only  a  common  rescue  by  a  few  dis- 
orderly soldiers,  and  not  the  formal  deliberate  act  of  the 
king's  guard,  headed  by  an  officer,  and  the  public  has  fallen 
into  the  deception.  I  think,  therefore,  we  are  obliged  to  Ju- 
nius for  the  care  he  has  taken  to  inquire  into  the  facts,  and 
for  the  just  commentary  with  which  he  has  given  them  to  the 
world. — For  my  own  part,  I  am  as  unwilling  as  any  man  to 
load  the  unfortunate;  but,  really,  Sir,  the  precedent,  with 


184  LETTERS  OF 

respect  to  the  guards,  is  of  a  most  important  nature,  and 
alarming  enough  (considering  the  consequences  with  which 
it  may  be  attended)  to  deserve  a  parliamentary  inquiry: 
when  the  guards  are  daring  enough,  not  only  to  violate  their 
own  discipline,  but  publicly  and  with  the  most  atrocious 
violence  to  stop  the  execution  of  the  laws,  and  when  such 
extraordinary  offences  pass  with  impunity,  believe  me,  Sir, 
the  precedent  strikes  deep. 

PHILO  JUNIUS*. 


LETTER  XXXII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sin,  15  Nov.  1769. 

I  admit  the  claim  of  a  gentleman,  who  publishes  in  the 
Gazetteer  under  the  name  of  Modestus],  He  has  some  right 
to  expect  an  answer  from  me:  though,  I  think,  not  so  much 
from  the  merit  or  importance  of  his  objections,  as  from  my 
own  voluntary  engagement.  I  had  a  reason  for  not  taking 
notice  of  him  sooner,  which,  as  he  is  a  candid  person,  I  be- 
lieve he  will  think  sufficient.  In  my  first  letter,  I  took  for 
granted,  from  the  time  which  had  elapsed,  that  there  was  no 
intention  to  censure,  nor  even  to  try  the  persons  concerned 
in  the  rescue  of  general  Gansel;  but  Modestus  having  since 
either  affirmed,  or  strongly  insinuated,  that  the  offenders 
might  still  be  brought  to  a  legal  trial,  any  attempt  to  pre- 
judge the  cause,  or  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  a  jury,  or  a 
court-martial,  would  be  highly  improper. 

A  man,  more  hostile  to  the  ministry  than  I  am,  would  not 

*  This  letter  was  originally  printed  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  with  the 
signature  of  Moderatus-  It  shews  that  Junius  himself'  was  peculiarly 
pleased  with  the  composition,  or  he  would  not  have  raised  it,  in  his  own 
edition,  to  the  rank  of  those  letters  which  possess  the  signature  of  his 
chief  auxiliary.  Edit. 

|  In  the  copy  corrected  by  the  author,  and  from  which  the  original  edi- 
tion of  these  letters  was  printed,  he  gives  directions  to  omit  the  letter  un- 
der this  signature  in  the  following  words: — "Modestus  is  too  stupid, 
and  must  not  be  inserted."  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  185 

so  often  remind  them  of  their  duty.  If  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
will  not  perform  the  duty  of  his  station,  why  is  he  minister? 
— I  will  not  descend  to  a  scurrilous  altercation  with  any  man: 
but  this  is  a  subject  too  important  to  be  passed  over  with 
silent  indifference.  If  the  gentlemen,  whose  conduct  is  in 
question,  are  not  brought  to  a  trial,  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
shall  hear  from  me  again*. 

The  motives  on  which  I  am  supposed  to  have  taken  up  this 
cause,  are  of  little  importance,  compared  with  the  facts  them- 
selves, and  the  observations  I  have  made  upon  them.  With- 
out a  vain  profession  of  integrity,  which,  in  these  times, 
mi^ht  justly  be  suspected,  I  shall  shew  myself  in  effect  a 
friend  to  the  interests  of  my  countrymen,  and  leave  it  to 
them  to  determine,  whether  I  am  moved  by  a  personal  ma- 
levolence to  three  private  gentlemen,  or  merely  by  a  hope  of 
perplexing  the  ministry,  or  whether  I  am  animated  by  a  just 
and  honourable  purpose  of  obtaining  a  satisfaction  to  the 
laws  of  this  country ,  equal,  if  possible,  to  the  violation  they 
have  suffered. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXXIII. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 

My  Lord,  29  Nov.  1769. 

Though  my  opinion  of  your  Grace's  integrity  was  but 
little  affected  by  the  coyness  with  which  you  received  t  Mr. 

*  See  this  subject  further  pursued  in  Miscellaneous  Letters,  lxiv.  to 
lxviii.  inclusive.  Edit. 

•j-  The  fact  is  detailed  by  Junius  in  a  note  to  pages  190  and  215  of  the 
present  volume.  Mr.  Samuel  Vaughan  was  a  merchant  in  the  city,  of 
hitherto  unblemished  character,  and  strongly  attached  to  the  popular 
cause.  The  office  he  attempted  to  procure,  had,  at  times,  been  previously 
disposed  of  for  a  pecuniary  consideration,  and  had,  on  one  particular  oc- 
casion, been  sold  by  an  order  of  the  Court  of  Chancery,  and  consisted  in 
the  reversion  of  the  clerkship  to  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  island  of  Ja- 
maica. A  Mr.  Howell  was,  in  fact,  at  this  very  time  in  treaty  with  the  pa- 
tentee for  the  purchase  of  his  resignation,  which  clearly  disproved  any 
criminal  in;ention  in  Mr.  V.  He  was  however  prosecuted,  obviously  from 
Vol.  I.  2  A  political 


186  LETTERS  OF 

Vaughatvs  proposals,  I  confess  I  give  you  some  credit  for 
your  discretion.  You  had  a  fair  opportunity  of  displaying  a 
certain  delicacy,  of  which  you  had  not  been  suspected;  and 
you  were  in  the  right  to  make  use  of  it.  By  laying  in  a  mo- 
derate stock  of  reputation,  you  undoubtedly  meant  to  pro- 
vide for  the  future  necessities  of  your  character,  that  with  an 
honourable  resistance  upon  record,  you  might  safely  indulge 
your  genius,  and  yield  to  a  favourite  inclination  with  secu- 
rity. But  you  have  discovered  your  purposes  too  soon;  and, 
instead  of  the  modest  reserve  of  virtue,  have  shewn  us  the 
termagant  chastity  of  a  prude,  who  gratifies  her  passions 
with  distinction,  and  prosecutes  one  lover  for  a  rape,  while 
she  solicits  the  lewd  embraces  of  another. 

Your  cheek  turns  pale;  for  a  guilty  conscience  tells  you, 
you  are  undone. — Come  forward,  thou  virtuous  minister,  and 
tell  the  world  by  what  interest  Mr.  Hine  has  been  recom- 
mended to  so  extraordinary  a  mark  of  his  Majesty's  favour; 
what  was  the  price  of  the  patent  he  has  bought,  and  to  what 
honourable  purpose  the  purchase  money  has  been  applied. 
Nothing  less  than  many  thousands  could  pay  Colonel  Bur- 
goyne's  expences  at  Preston*.  Do  you  dare  to  prosecute 
such  a  creature  as  Vaughan,  while  you  are  basely  secting  up 
the  royal  patronage  to  auction?  Do  you  dare  to  complain  of  an 
attackupon  your  own  honour,  whileyou  are  sellingthe  favours 
of  the  crown,  to  raise  a  fund  for  corrupting  the  morals  of  the 
people?  And  do  you  think  it  possible  such  enormities  should 
escape  without  impeachment?  It  is  indeed  highly  your  inter- 
est to  maintain  the  present  House  of  Commons.  Having  sold 
the  nation  to  you  in  gross,  they  will  undoubtedly  protect  you 
in  the  detail;  for  while  they  patronize  your  crimes,  they  feel 

for  their  own. 

JUNIUS. 

political  motives,  but  which  was  dropped,  as  subsequently  stated  by  Ju- 
nius, after  the  affair  of  Hine's  patent  was  brought  before  the  public. 
— Edit. 

*  See  the  ensuing  letter,  as  also  Private  Letters,  No.  15,  December  1?. 
1769. ,  Edit. 


JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXXIV. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 

My  Lord,  12  Dec.  1769- 

I  find  with  some  surprize,  that  you  are  not  supported 
as  you  deserve.  Your  most  determined  advocates  have 
scruples  about  them,  which  you  are  unacquainted  with; 
and,  though  there  be  nothing  too  hazardous  for  your  Grace 
Xo  engage  in,  there  are  some  things  too  infamous  for  the 
vilest  prostitute  of  a  newspaper  to  defend*.  In  what  other 
manner  shall  we  account  for  the  profound,  submissive  silence, 
which  you  and  your  friends  have  observed  upon  a  charge, 
which  called  immediately  for  the  clearest  refutation,  and 
would  have  justified  the  severest  measures  of  resentment?  1 
dia  not  attempt  to  blast  your  character  by  an  indirect,  ambi- 
guous insinuation,  but  candidly  stated  to  you  a  plain  fact, 
which  struck  directly  at  the  integrity  of  a  privy  counsellor,  oT 
a  first  commissioner  of  the  treasury,  and  of  a  leading  minister, 
who  is  supposed  to  enjoy  the  first  share  in  his  Majesty's  con- 
fidence!. In  every  one  of  these  capacities  I  employed  the 
most  moderate  terms  to  charge  you  with  treachery  to  your 
Sovereign,  and  breach  of  trust  in  your  office.  I  accused  you 
of  having  sold,  or  permitted  to  be  sold,  a  patent  place  in  the 
collection  of  the  customs  at  Exeter,  to  one  Mr.  Hine,  who, 
unable  or  unwilling  to  deposit  the  whole  purchase-money 
himself,  raised  part  of  it  by  contribution,  and  has  now 
a  certain  Doctor  Brooke  quartered  upon  the  salary  for  one 
hundred  pounds  a  year. — No  sale  by  the  candle  was  ever 
conducted  with  greater  formality. — I  affirm  that  the  price, 
at  which  the  place  was  knocked  down  (and  which,  I  have 
good  reason  to  think,  was  not  less  than  three  thousand  five 

*  From  the  publication  of  the  preceding  to  this  date,  not  one  word  was 
said  in  defence  of  the  infamous  Duke  of  Grafton.  But  vice  and  impudence 
soon  recovered  themselves,  and  the  sale  of  the  royal  favour  was  openly 
avowed  and  defended.  We  acknowledge  the  piety  of  St  James's;  but  what 
is  become  of  his  morality  ? 

f  And  by  the  same  means  preserves  it  to  this  hour. 


188  LETTERS  OF 

hundred  pounds)  was,  with  your  connivance  and  consent*, 
paid  to  Colonel  Burgoyne,  to  reward  him,  I  presume,  for 
the  decency  of  his  deportment  at  Prestonf;  or  to  reimburse 
him,  perhaps,  for  the  fine  of  one  thousand  pounds,  which, 
for  that  very  deportment,  the  court  of  King's  Bench  thought 
proper  to  set  upon  him. — It  is  not  often  that  the  chief  justice 
and  the  prime  minister  are  so  strangely  at  variance  in  their 
opinions  of  men  and  things. 

I  thank  God  there  is  not  in  human  nature  a  degree  of  ira- 

*  The  friends  of  the  noble  duke  chiefly  attempted  to  shelter  him  under 
a  denial  that  this  transaction  was  done  with  his  connivance  or  consent. 
The  following'  is  a  letter  upon  this  subject,  in  answer  to  the  charge  of 
Junius,  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  Dec.  14,  1769. 

TO  THE   PRINTER  OF  THE   PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 

The  infamous  traduction  of  that  libeller  Junius,  his  daring  falsehoods, 
and  gross  misrepresentations,  excite  in  me  the  utmost  abhorrence  and 
contempt,  and  I  hope  all  his  deadly  poisons  will  be  sheathed  in  the  na- 
tural antidote  every  good  mind  has  to  malevolent  and  bitter  invective. 
What  act  of  delinquency  has  the  Duke  of  Grafion  committed,  by  colonel 
Burgoyne  disposing  of  a  patent  obtained  of  his  Grace?  Will  Junius  dare 
to  assert  it  was  with  the  Duke's  privity,  or  for  his  emolument?  Let  us  state 
the  fact,  and  disarm  the  assassin  at  once.  A.  place  in  the  custom-house 
at  Exeter  becomes  vacant — colonel  Burgoyne  asks  it  of  the  Duke  of 
Grafton — he  gives  it. — The  colonel  says  I  cannot  hold  it  myself;  will  you 
give  it  my  friend? — The  duke  consents — the  colonel  nominates — the  duke 
apppoints; — but,  says  Junius,  the  colonel  set  it  up  to  sale,  and  actually 
received  a  sum  of  money  for  it.  Be  it  so — lie  took  a  gross  sum  for  what 
was  given  him  as  an  annual  income;  and  who  is  injured  by  this?  If  the 
Duke  of  Grafton  sold  it,  he  is  impeachable;  if  he  gave  it  to  be  sold,  he  is 
blame  able;  but  if  his  Grace  did  neither,  which  is  the  fact,  he  is  basely  be- 
lied, and  most  impudently  and  wickedly  vilified. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  best  friend, 

Dec.  12.  JUSTICE. 

Junius,  nevertheless,  completely  accomplished  his  object;  the  noble 
duke  not  chusing  to  persevere  in  this  prosecution  of  Vaughan,  with  the 
prospect  of  a  counter-accusation.  See  Private  Letters,  No.  15.  Edit. 

■j-  Colonel,  afterwards  general,  Burgoyne,  was  commissioned  by  admi- 
nistration to  offer  himself  as  a  candidate,  upon  a  parliamentary  vacancy  in 
the  borough  of  Preston.  During  the  contest  that  ensued,  he  suffered  his 
partizans  to  commit  the  most  disgraceful  excesses;  and  having  squandered 
not  less  than  ten  thousand  pounds,  without  success  at  last,  he  was,  upon 
the  close  of  the  election,  prosecuted  for  his  riot,  and  fined,  as  stated  in  the 
text.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  189 

pudence  daring  enough  to  deny  the  charge  I  have  fixed  upon 
you.  Your  courteous  secretary  *,  your  confidential  architectf, 
are  silent  as  the  grave.  Even  Mr.  Rigbv's  countenance  fails 
him.  He  violates  his  second  nature,  and  blushes  whenever  he 
speaks  of  you:j:.  Perhaps  the  noble  colonel  himself  will  relieve 
you.  No  man  is  more  tender  of  his  reputation.  He  is  not  only 
nice,  but  perfectly  sore  in  every  thing  that  touches  his  honour. 
If  any  man,  for  example,  were  to  accuse  him  of  taking  his 
stand  at  a  gaming-table,  and  watching  with  the  soberest  at- 
tention for  a  fair  opportunity  of  engaging  a  drunken  young 
nobleman  at  piquet,  he  would  undoubtedly  consider  it  as  an 
infamous  aspersion  upon  his  character,  and  resent  it  like 
a  man  of  honour. — Acquitting  him  therefore  of  drawing  a 
regular  and  splendid  subsistence  from  any  unworthy  prac- 
tices, either  in  his  own  house  or  elsewhere,  let  me  ask  your 
Grace,  for  what  military  merits  you  have  been  pleased  to 
reward  him  with  a  military  government§?  He  had  a  regi- 
ment of  dragoons,  which  one  would  imagine,  was  at  least  an 
equivalent  for  any  services  he  ever  performed.  Besides,  he 
is  but  a  young  officer,  considering  his  preferment,  and,  except 
in  his  activity  at  Preston,  not  very  conspicuous  in  his  pro- 
fession. But  it  seems,  the  sale  of  a  civil  employment  was  not 
sufficient,  and  military  governments,  which  were  intended 
for  the  support  of  worn  out  veterans,  must  be  thrown  into 
the  scale,  to  defray  the  extensive  bribery  of  a  contested  elec- 
tion. Are  these  the  steps  you  take  to  secure  to  your  Sovereign 
the  attachment  of  his  army?  With  what  countenance  dare 
you  appear  in  the  royal  presence,  branded  as  you  are  with 
the  infamy  of  a  notorious  breach  of  trust?  With  what  coun- 
tenance can  you  take  your  seat  at  the  treasury-board  or  in 
council,  when  you  feel  that  every  circulating  whisper  is  at 
your  expense  alone,  and  stabs  you  to  the  heart?  Have  you  a 

*  Tommy  Bradshaw. 

f  Mr.  Taylor.   He  and  George  Ross,  (the  Scotch  agent  and  worthy  con 
fidant  of  Lord  Mansfield)  managed  the  business. 

t  Mr  Rigby  was  proverbially  remarked  for  a  countenance  not  easily 
abashed  by  any  occurrence.  Edit. 

%  Col.  Burgoyne,  only  a  few  days  before  the  date  of  this  letter,  had  been 
promoted  to  the  Government  of  Fort  St.  George.  Edit. 


190  LETTERS  OF 

single  friend  in  parliament  so  shameless,  so  thoroughly  aban- 
doned, as  to  undertake  your  defence?  You  know,  my  Lord, 
that  there  is  not  a  man  in  either  house,  whose  character,  how- 
ever flagitious,  would  not  be  ruined  by  mixing  his  reputation 
with  yours;  and  does  not  your  heart  inform  you,  that  vou  ar • 
degraded  below  the  condition  of  a  man,  when  you 
obliged  to  hear  these  insults  with  submission,  and  even  to 
thank  me  for  my  moderation? 

We  are  told,  by  the  highest  judicial  authority,  th^t  Mr. 
Vaughan's  offer  to  purchase  the  reversion  of  a  patent  in  Ja- 
maica (which  he  was  otherwise  sufficiently  entitled  to) 
amounted  to  a  high  misdemeanour*.  Be  it  so:  and  if  he  de- 

*  A  little  before  the  publication  of  this  and  the  preceding  letter,  the 
chaste  Duke  of  Grafton  had  commenced  a  prosecution  against  Mr.  Samuel 
Vaughan,  for  endeavouring-  to  corrupt  his  integrity  by  an  offer  of  five  thou- 
sand pounds  for  a  patent  place  in  Jamaica.  A  rule  to  shew  cause,  why  an 
information  should  not  be  exhibited  against  Vaughan  for  certain  misde- 
meanours, being  granted  by  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  the  matter  was 
solemnly  argued  on  the  27th  of  November,  1~69,  and,  by  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  the  four  judges,  the  rule  was  made  absolute.  The  pleadings  and 
3peeches  were  accurately  taken  in  short-hand  and  published.  -The  whole 
of  Lord  Mansfield's  speech,  and  particularly  the  following  extracts  from 
it,  deserve  the  reader's  attention.  "A  practice  of  the  kind  complained  of 
here  is  certainly  dishonourable  and  scandalous. — If  a  man,  standing  under 
the  relation  of  an  officer  under  the  King,  or  of  a  person  in  whom  the  King 
puts  confidence,  or  of  a  minister,  takes  money  fin-  the  use  of  that  confi- 
dence the  King  puts  in  him,  he  basely  betrays  the  King, — he  basely  be- 
trays his  trust. — If  the  King  sold  the  office,  it  would  be  acting  contrary  to 
the  trust  the  constitution  hath  reposed  in  him.  The  constitution  does  not 
intend  the  crown  should  sell  those  offices,  to  raise  a  revenue  out  of  them. 
— Is  it  possible  to  hesitate,  whether  this  would  not  be  criminal  in  the  Duke 
of  Graftonr — contrary  to  his  duty  as  a  privy  counsellor; — contrary  to  his 
duty  as  a  minister — contrary  to  his  duty  as  a  subject. — His  advice  should 
be  free  according  to  his  judgment; — It  is  the  duty  of  his  office; — he  has 
sworn  to  it." — Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  chaste  Duke  of  Grafton  cer- 
tainly sold  a  patent  place  to  Mr.  Hine  for  three  thousand  five  hundred 
pounds;  and,  for  so  doing,  is  now  lord  privy  seal  to  the  chaste  George,  with 
whose  piety  we  are  perpetually  deafened.  If  the  House  of  Commons  had 
done  their  duty,  and  impeached  the  black  Duke  for  this  most  infamous 
breach  of  trust,  how  woefully  must  poor,  honest  Mansfield  have  been  puz- 
zled! His  embarrassment  would  have  afforded  the  most  ridiculous  scene 
that  ever  was  exhibited.  To  axe  the  worthy  judge  from  this  perplexity, 
and  the  no  less  worthy  Duke  from  impeachment,  the  prosecution  against 
Vaughan  was  immediately  dropped  upon  my  discovery  and  publication  of 

the 


JUNIUS.  191 

serves  it,  let  him  be  punished.  But  the  learned  judge  might 
have  had  a  fairer  opportunity  of  displaying  the  powers  of 
his  eloquence.  Having  delivered  himself  with  so  much  ener- 
gy upon  the  criminal  nature,  and  dangerous  consequences  of 
any  attempt  to  corrupt  a  man  in  your  Grace's  station,  what 
would  he  have  said  to  the  minister  himself,  to  that  very  privy 
counsellor,  to  that  first  commissioner  of  the  treasury,  who 
does  not  wait  for,  but  impatiently  solicits  the  touch  of  cor- 
ruption; who  employs  the  meanest  of  his  creatures  in  these 
honourable  services,  and,  forgetting  the  genius  and  fidelity 
of  his  secretary,  descends  to  apply  to  his  house-builder  for 
assistance? 

This  affair,  my  Lord,  will  do  infinite  credit  to  govern- 
ment, if,  to  clear  your  character,  you  should  think  proper  to 
bring  it  into  the  House  of  Lords,  or  into  the  court  of  King's 
Bench.— —But,  my  Lord,  you  dare  not  do  either. 

JUNIUS, 


LETTER  XXXV*. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

19  December,  1769. 

When  the  complaints  of  a  brave  and  powerful  people  are 
observed  to  encrease  in  proportion  to  the  wrongs  they  have 
suffered;  when,  instead  of  sinking  into  submission,  they  are 
roused  to  resistance,  the  time  will  soon  arrive  at  which  every 

the  Dnke's  treachery.  The  suffering  this  charge  to  pass,  without  any  in- 
quiry, fixes  shameless  prostitution  upon  the  face  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, more  strongly  than  even  the  Middlesex  election — Yet  the  licen- 
tiousness of  the  press  is  complained  of! 

*  The  address  to  the  King  through  the  medium  of  this  letter,  made  a 
very  great  impression  upon  the  public  mind  at  the  moment  of  its  appear- 
ance, and  though  500  copies  of  the  P.  A.  were  printed  in  addition  to  the 
usual  numbers  circulated,  not  a  single  copy  was  to  be  procured  in  a  few 
hours  after  its  publication.  The  author  himself,  indeed,  seemed  to  enter- 
tain a  very  favourable  opinion  of  it;  as  in  Private  Letter,  No.  15,  speaking 
of  this  Letter,  he  says,  "  I  am  now  meditating  a  capital,  and,  I  hope,  a 
final  piece."  It  was  for  this  production  that  the  Printer  was  prosecuted, 
anrl  obtained  the  celebrated  verdict  of  "  guilty  of  printing  and  publishing 

only," 


192  LETTERS  OP 

inferior  consideration  must  yield  to  the  security  of  the  So- 
vereign, and  to  the  general  safety  of  the  state.  There  is  a 
moment  of  difficulty  aid  danger,  at  which  flattery  and  false- 
hood can  no  longer  deceive,  and  simplicity  itself  can  no 
longer  be  misled.  Let  us  suppose  it.  arrived.  Let  us  suppose 
a  gracious,  well-intentioned  prince,  made  sensible  at  last  of 
the  great  dutv  he  owes  to  his  people,  and  of  his  own  dis- 
graceful situation;  that  he  looks  round  him  for  assistance, 
and  asks  for  no  advice,  but  how  to  gratify  the  wishes,  and 
secure  the  happiness  of  his  subjects.  In  these  circumstances, 
it  may  be  matter  of  curious  speculation  to  consider,  if  an 
honest  man  were  permitted  to  approach  a  King,  in  what  terms 
he  would  address  himself  to  his  Sovereign.  Let  it  be  ima- 
gined, no  matter  how  improbable,  that  the  first  prejudice 
against  his  character  is  removed,  that  the  ceremonious  dif- 
ficulties of  an  audience  are  surmounted,  that  he  feels  himself 
animated  by  the  purest  and  most  honourable  affections  to  his 
King  and  country,  and  that  the  great  person,  whom  he  ad- 
dresses, has  spirit  enough  to  bid  him  speak  freely,  and  un- 

only,"  the  consequence  of  which,  as  already  observed  in  note  to  page 
19,  was,  that  two  distinct  motions  were  made  in  court;  one  bytlie  counsel 
for  the  defendant  in  arrest  of  judgment,  grounded  on  its  ambiguity,  and 
another  by  the  counsel  for  the  Crown,  to  compel  the  defendant  to  shew 
cause  why  the  verdict  should  not  be  entered  up  according  to  the  legal 
import.  The  case  being  argued,  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  ultimately  de- 
cided that  a  new  trial  should  be  granted.  This  accordingly  commenced, 
when  the  attorney  general  observing  to  the  Chief  Justice,  that  he  bad  not 
the  original  newspaper  by  which  he  could  prove  the  publication;  his  Lord- 
ship laconically  replied,  "that's  not  my  fault,  Mr.  Attorney:"  and  in  this 
manner  terminated  the  second  trial.  The  fact  is,  that  the  foreman  of  the 
jury  upon  the  first  trial  had  pocketed  the  paper,  upon  its  being  handed  to 
the  jury  box  for  inspection,  and  had  afterwards  destroyed  it.  The  expense 
the  defendant  was  put  to  in  this  prosecution,  as  stated  in  Private  Letter, 
No.  19,  amounted  to  about  120/.  The  late  Mr  Almon,  who  was  also  pro- 
secuted for  selling  a  reprint  of  this  letter,  asserts,  in  a  note  to  another  edi- 
tion of  this  work,  that  the  legal  expence  incurred  in  defending  his  own 
action,  which  could  not  exceed  that  of  the  original  printer,  amounted  to 
between  Jive  and  six  liundred  pounds!  An  exaggeration  which  proves  the 
necessity  of  exercising  no  small  degree  of  caution,  in  estimating  whatever 
other  facts  he  has  attempted  to  advance,  with  a  view  of  elucidating  the 
general  history  of  the  times.  Edit 


JUNIUS.  193 

derstanding  enough  to  listen  to  him  with  attention.  Unac- 
quainted with  the  vain  impertinence  of  forms,  he  would 
deliver  his  sentiments  with  dignity  and  firmness,  but  not 
without  respect. 

Sir, 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  your  life,  and  originally  the  cause 
of  every  reproach  and  distress,  which  has  attended  your  go- 
vernment, that  you  should  never  have  been  acquainted  with 
the  language  of  truth,  until  you  heard  it  in  the  complaints  of 
your  people.  It  is  not,  however,  too  late  to  correct  the  error 
of  your  education.  We  are  still  inclined  to  make  an  indul- 
gent allowance  for  the  pernicious  lessons  you  received  in 
your  youth,  and  to  form  the  most  sanguine  hopes  from  the 
natural  benevolence  of  your  disposition*.  We  are  far  from 
thinking  you  capable  of  a  direct,  deliberate  purpose  to  invade 
those  original  rights  of  your  subjects,  on  which  all  their  civil 
and  political  liberties  depend.  Had  it  been  possible  for  us 
to  entertain  a  suspicion  so  dishonourable  to  your  character, 
we  should  long  since  have  adopted  a  style  of  remonstrance 
very  distant  from  the  humility  of  complaint.  The  doctrine 

*  The  plan  of  tutelage  and  future  dominion  over  the  heir  apparent,  laid 
many  years  ago  at  Carleton  -house  between  the  Princess  Dowager  and  her 
favourite  the  Earl  of  Bute,  was  as  gross  and  palpable,  as  that,  which  was 
concerted  between  Anne  of  Austria  and  Cardinal  Mazarin,  to  govern 
Lewis  the  Fourteenth,  and  in  effect  to  prolong  his  minority  until  the  end  of 
their  lives.  That  prince  had  strong  natural  parts,  and  used  frequently  to 
blush  for  his  own  ignorance  and  want  of  education,  which  had  been  wil- 
fully neglected  by  his  mother  and  her  minion.  A  little  experience  however 
soon  shewed  him  how  shamefully  he  had  been  treated,  and  for  what  infa- 
mous purposes  he  had  been  kept  in  ignorance.  Our  great  Edward  too,  at 
an  early  period,  had  sense  enough  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  con- 
nection between  his  abandoned  mother,  and  the  detested  Mortimer.  But, 
since  that  time,  human  nature,  we  may  observe,  is  greatly  altered  for  the 
better.  Dowagers  may  be  chaste,  and  minions  may  be  honest.  When  it 
was  proposed  to  settle  the  present  King's  household  as  Prince  of  Wales,  it 
is  well  known  that  the  Earl  of  Bute  was  forced  into  it,  in  direct  contradic- 
tion to  the  late  King's  inclination.  That  was  the  salient  point,  from  which 
all  the  mischiefs  and  disgraces  of  the  present  reign  took  life  and  motion. 
From  that  moment,  Lord  Bute  never  suffered  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  be 
an  instant  out  of  his  sight, — We  need  not  look  farther. 

Vol.  I.  2  B 


194  LETTERS  OF 

inculcated  by  our  laws,  That  the  King'  can  do  no  wrong,  is 
admitted  without  reluctance.  We  separate  the  amiable,  good- 
natured  prince,  from  the  folly  and  treachery  of  his  servants, 
and  the  private  virtues  of  the  man,  from  the  vices  of  his  go- 
vernment. Were  it  not  for  this  just  distinction,  I  know  not 
whether  your  Majesty's  condition,  or  that  of  the  English 
nation,  would  deserve  most  to  be  lamented.  I  would  prepare 
vour  mind  for  a  favourable  reception  of  truth,  by  removing 
every  painful,  offensive  idea  of  personal  reproach.  Your  sub- 
jects, Sir,  wish  for  nothing  but  that,  as  they  are  reasonable 
and  affectionate  enough  to  separate  your  person  from  your 
government, so  you,  in  your  turn,  should  distinguish  between 
the  conduct,  which  becomes  the  permanent  dignity  of  a  King, 
and  that  which  serves  only  to  promote  the  temporary  inte- 
rest and  miserable  ambition  of  a  minister. 

You  ascended  the  throne  with  a  declared,  and,  I  doubt 
not,  a  sincere  resolution  of  giving  universal  satisfaction  to 
your  subjects*.  You  found  them  pleased  with  the  novelty 
of  a  young  prince,  whose  countenance  promised  even  more 
than  his  words,  and  loyal  to  you  not  only  from  principle,  but 
passion.  It  was  not  a  cold  profession  of  allegiance  to  the  first 
magistrate,  but  a  partial,  animated  attachment  to  a  favourite 
prince,  the  native  of  their  country.  They  did  not  wait  to 
examine  your  conduct,  nor  to  be  determined  by  experience, 
but  gave  you  a  generous  credit  for  the  future  blessings  of 
your  reign,  and  paid  you  in  advance  the  dearest  tribute  of 
their  affections.  Such,  Sir,  was  once  the  disposition  of  a  peo- 
ple, who  now  surround  your  throne  with  reproaches  and 
complaints.  Do  justice  to  yourself.  Banish  from  your  mind 
those  unworthy  opinions,  with  which  some  interested  per- 
sons have  laboured  to  possess  you.  Distrust  the  men,  who 
tell  you  that  the  English  are  naturally  light  and  inconstant; 
that  they  complain  without  a  cause.  Withdraw  your  con- 

"    "  Born  and  educated  in  this  country,  I  glory  in  the  name  of  Briton; 
and  the  peculiar  happiness  of  my  life  will  ever  consist  in  promoting-  the 
welfare  of  a  people,  whose  loyalty  and  warm  affection  to  me,  I  consider  a? 
the  greatest  and  most  permanent  security  of  my  throne."  King's  Speech 
.November  18,  1760.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  i$B 

Science  equally  from  all  parties:  from  ministers,  favourites, 
and  relations;  and  let  there  be  one  moment  in  your  life,  in 
which  you  have  consulted  your  own  understanding. 

When  you  affectedly  renounced  the  name  of  English- 
man*, believe  me,  Sir,  you  were  persuaded  to  pay  a  very 
ill-judged  compliment  to  one  part  of  your  subjects,  at  the 
expence  of  another.  While  the  natives  of  Scotland  are  not 
in  actual  rebellion,  they  are  undoubtedly  intitled  to  protec- 
tion; nor  do  I  mean  to  condemn  the  policy  of  giving  some 
encouragement  to  the  novelty  of  their  affections  for  the  house 
of  Hanover.  I  am  ready  to  hope  for  every  thing  from  their 
new-born  zeal,  and  from  the  future  steadiness  of  their  alle- 
giance. But  hitherto  they  have  no  claim  to  your  favour.  To 
honour  them  with  a  determined  predilection  and  confidence 
in  exclusion  of  your  English  subjects,  who  placed  your  fami- 
ly, and,  in  spite  of  treachery  and  rebellion,  have  supported 
it  upon  the  throne,  is  a  mistake  too  gross,  even  for  the  un- 
suspecting generosity  of  youth.  In  this  error  we  see  a  capi- 
tal violation  of  the  most  obvious  rules  of  policy  and  pru- 
dence. We  trace  it,  however,  to  an  original  bias  in  your 
education,  and  are  ready  to  allow  for  your  inexperience. 

To  the  same  early  influence  we  attribute  it,  that  you  have 
descended  to  take  a  share  not  only  in  the  narrow  views  and 
interests  of  particular  persons,  but  in  the  fatal  malignity  of 
their  passions.  At  your  accession  to  the  throne,  the  whole 
system  of  government  was  altered,  not  from  wisdom  or  de- 
liberation, but  because  it  had  been  adopted  by  your  prede- 
cessor. A  little  personal  motive  of  pique  and  resentment 
was  sufficient  to  remove  the  ablest  servants  of  the  crownf; 
but  it  is  not  in  this  country,  Sir,  that  such  men  can  be  dis- 
honoured by  the  frowns  of  a  King.  They  were  dismissed, 

*  He  means  renounced  a  connexion  with  Englishmen  in  favour  of  Scotch- 
men: and  the  allusion  is  chiefly  to  Lord  Bute  and  his  immediate  friends. 
— Edit. 

f  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  present  reign  was  to  dismiss  Mr.  Legge,, 
because  he  had  some  years  before  refused  to  yield  his  interest  in  Hamp- 
shire to  a  Scotchman  recommended  by  Lord  Bute.  This  was  the  reason 
publicly  assigned  by  bis  Lordship.  Author. 

The  person  here  alluded  to,  was  Sir  Simeon  Stuart.  Edit. 


\ijb  LETTERS  OF 

but  could  not  be  disgraced.  Without  entering  into  a  minuter 
discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  peace,  we  may  observe,  in  the 
imprudent  hurry  with  which  the  first  overtures  from  France 
were  accepted,  in  the  conduct  of  the  negotiation,  and  terms 
of  the  treaty,  the  strongest  marks  of  that  precipitate  spirit  of 
concession,  with  which  a  certain  part  of  your  subjects  have 
been  at  all  times  ready  to  purchase  a  peace  with  the  natural 
enemies  of  this  country.  On  your  part  we  are  satisfied  that 
everything  was  honourable  and  sincere,  and  if  England  was 
sold  to  France,  we  doubt  not  that  your  Majesty  was  equally 
betrayed.  The  conditions  of  the  peace  were  matter  of  grief 
and  surprise  to  your  subjects,  but  not  the  immediate  cause 
of  their  present  discontent. 

Hitherto,  Sir,  you  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  prejudices 
and  passions  of  others.  With  what  firmness  will  you  bear 
the  mention  of  your  own? 

A  man,  not  very  honourably  distinguished  in  the  world, 
commences  a  formal  attack  upon  your  favourite,  considering 
nothing,  but  how  he  might  best  expose  his  person  and  prin- 
ciples to  detestation,  and  the  national  character  of  his  coun- 
trymen to  contempt.  The  natives  of  that  country,  Sir,  are 
as  much  distinguished  by  a  peculiar  character,  as  by  your 
Majesty's  favour.  Like  another  chosen  people,  they  have 
been  conducted  into  the  land  of  plenty,  where  they  find  them- 
selves effectually  marked,  and  divided  from  mankind.  There 
is  hardly  a  period,  at  which  the  most  irregular  character  may 
not  be  redeemed.  The  mistakes  of  one  sex  find  a  retreat  in 
patriotism;  those  of  the  other  in  devotion.  Mr.  Wilkes 
brought  with  him  into  politics  the  same  liberal  sentiments, 
by  which  his  private  conduct  had  been  directed,  and  seemed 
to  think,  that,  as  there  are  few  excesses,  in  which  an  English 
gentleman  may  not  be  permitted  to  indulge,  the  same  lati- 
tude was  allowed  him  in  the  choice  of  his  political  princi- 
ples, and  in  the  spirit  of  maintaining  them. — I  mean  to  state, 
not  entirely  to  defend  his  conduct.  In  the  earnestness  of  his 
zeal,  he  suffered  some  unwarrantable  insinuations  to  escape 
him.  He  said  more  than  moderate  men  would  justify;  but 
not  enough  to  entitle  him  to  the  honour  of  your  Majesty's 


JUNIUS.  197 

personal  resentment.  The  rays  of  Royal  indignation,  col- 
lected upon  him,  served  only  to  illuminate,  and  could  not 
consume.  Animated  by  the  favour  of  the  people  on  one  side, 
and  heated  by  persecution  on  the  other,  his  views  and  sen- 
timents changed  with  his  situation.  Hardly  serious  at  first, 
he  is  now  an  enthusiast.  The  coldest  bodies  warm  with  op- 
position, the  hardest  sparkle  in  collision.  There  is  a  holy 
mistaken  zeal  in  politics  as  well  as  religion.  By  persuading 
others,  we  convince  ourselves.  The  passions  are  engaged, 
and  create  a  maternal  affection  in  the  mind,  which  forces  us 
to  love  the  cause,  for  which  we  suffer. — Is  this  a  contention 
worthy  of  a  King?  Are  you  not  sensible  how  much  the 
meanness  of  the  cause  gives  an  air  of  ridicule  to  the  serious 
difficulties  into  which  you  have  been  betrayed?  the  destruc- 
tion of  one  man  has  been  now,  for  many  years,  the  sole  ob- 
ject of  your  government;  and  if  there  can  be  any  thing  still 
more  disgraceful,  we  have  seen,  for  such  an  object,  the  ut- 
most influence  of  the  executive  power,  and  every  ministerial 
artifice  exerted  without  success.  Nor  can  you  ever  succeed, 
unless  lie  should  be  imprudent  enough  to  forfeit  the  protec- 
tion of  those  laws,  to  which  you  owe  vour  crown,  or  unless 
vour  ministers  should  persuade  you  to  make  it  a  question  of 
force  alone,  and  try  the  whole  strength  of  government  in 
opposition  to  the  people.  The  lessons  he  has  received  from 
experience,  will  probably  guard  him  from  such  excess  of 
folly;  and  in  your  Majesty's  virtues  we  find  an  unquestion- 
able assurance  that  no  illegal  violence  will  be  attempted. 

Far  from  suspecting  you  of  so  horrible  a  design,  we  would 
attribute  the  continued  violation  of  the  laws,  and  even  this 
last  enormous  attack  upon  the  vital  principles  of  the  consti- 
tution, to  an  ill-advised,  unworthy,  personal  resentment. 
From  one  false  step  you  have  been  betrayed  into  another, 
and  as  the  cause  was  unworthy  of  you,  your  ministers  were 
determined  that  the  prudence  of  the  execution  should  cor- 
respond with  the  wisdom  and  dignity  of  the  design.  Thev 
have  reduced  you  to  the  necessity  of  choosing  out  of  a  vari- 
ety of  difficulties; — to  a  situation  so  unhappy,  that  you  can 
neither  do  wrong  without  ruin,  nor  right  without  affliction. 


198  LETTERS  OF 

These  worthy  servants  have  undoubtedly  given  you  many 
singular  proofs  of  their  abilities.  Not  contented  with  making 
Mr.  Wilkes  a  man  of  importance,  they  have  judiciously 
transferred  the  question,  from  the  rights  and  interests  of  one 
man,  to  the  most  important  rights  and  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  forced  your  subjects,  from  wishing  well  to  the  cause 
of  an  individual,  to  unite  with  him  in  their  own.  Let  them 
proceed  as  they  have  begun,  and  your  Majesty  need  not 
doubt  that  the  catastrophe  will  do  no  dishonour  to  the  con- 
duct of  the  piece. 

The  circumstances  to  which  you  are  reduced,  will  not  ad- 
mit of  a  compromise  with  the  English  nation.  Undecisive, 
qualifying  measures  will  disgrace  your  government  still 
more  than  open  violence,  and,  without  satisfying  the  people, 
will  excite  their  contempt.  They  have  too  much  understand- 
ing and  spirit  to  accept  of  an  indirect  satisfaction  for  a  direct 
injury.  Nothing  less  than  a  repeal,  as  formal  as  the  resolu- 
tion itself,  can  heal  the  wound,  which  has  been  given  to  the 
constitution*,  nor  will  any  thing  less  be  accepted.  I  can 
readily  believe  that  there  is  an  influence  sufficient  to  recal 
that  pernicious  vote.  The  House  of  Commons  undoubtedly 
consider  their  duty  to  the  crown  as  paramount  to  all  other 
obligations.  To  us  they  are  only  indebted  for  an  accidental 
existence,  and  have  justly  transferred  their  gratitude  from 
their  parents  to  their  benefactors; — from  those,  who  gave 
them  birth,  to  the  minister,  from  whose  benevolence  they 
derive  the  comforts  and  pleasures  of  their  political  life;— 
who  has  taken  the  tenderest  care  of  their  infancy,  and  re- 
lieves their  necessities  without  offending  their  delicacy.  But, 
if  it  were  possible  for  their  integrity  to  be  degraded  to  a 
condition  so  vile  and  abject,  that,  compared  with  it,  the  pre- 
sent estimation  they  stand  in  is  a  state  of  honour  and  respect, 
consider,  Sir,  in  what  manner  you  will  afterwards  proceed. 
Can  you  conceive  that  the  people  of  this  country  will  long 
submit  to  be  governed  by  so  flexible  a  House  of  Commons! 
It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  human  society,  that  any  form  of 

*  See  note  to  Letter  xlvi.  in  which  the  repeal  of  this  resolution  is  dis- 
tinctly detailed.  F, bi  r 


JUNIUS.  199 

government,  in  such  circumstances,  can  long  be  preserved. 
In  ours,  the  general  contempt  of  the  people  is  as  fatal  as  their 
detestation.  Such,  I  am  persuaded,  would  be  the  necessary 
effect  of  any  base  concession  made  by  the  present  House  of 
Commons,  and,  as  a  qualifying  measure  would  not  be  ac- 
cepted, it  remains  for  you  to  decide  whether  you  will,  at  any 
hazard,  support  a  set  of  men,  who  have  reduced  you  to  this 
unhappy  dilemma,  or  whether  you  will  gratify  the  united 
wishes  of  the  whole  people  of  England  by  dissolving  the 
parliament. 

Taking  it  for  granted,  as  I  do  very  sincerely,  that  you  have 
personally  no  design  against  the  constitution,  nor  any  views 
inconsistent  with  the  good  of  your  subjects,  I  think  you  can- 
not hesitate  long  upon  the  choice,  which  it  equally  concerns 
your  interest,  and  your  honour  to  adopt.  On  one  side,  you 
hazard  the  affections  of  all  your  English  subjects;  you  relin- 
quish every  hope  of  repose  to  yourself,  and  you  endanger 
the  establishment  of  your  family  for  ever.  All  this  you  ven- 
ture for  no  object  whatsoever,  or  for  such  an  object,  as  it 
would  be  an  affront  to  you  to  name.  Men  of  sense  will  ex- 
amine your  conduct  with  suspicion;  while  those  who  are 
incapable  of  comprehending  to  what  degree  they  are  injured, 
afflict  you  with  clamours  equally  insolent  and  unmeaning. 
Supposing  it  possible  that  no  fatal  struggle  should  ensue, 
you  determine  at  once  to  be  unhappy,  without  the  hope  of 
a  compensation  either  from  interest  or  ambition.  If  an 
English  King  be  hated  or  despised,  he  must  be  unhappy;  and 
this  perhaps  is  the  only  political  truth,  which  he  ought  to  be 
convinced  of  without  experiment.  But  if  the  English  people 
should  no  longer  confine  their  resentment  to  a  submissive 
representation  of  their  wrongs;  if,  following  the  glorious  ex- 
ample of  their  ancestors,  they  should  no  longer  appeal  to  the 
creature  of  the  constitution,  but  to  that  high  Being,  who 
gave  them  the  rights  of  humanity,  whose  gifts  it  were  sacri- 
lege to  surrender,  let  me  ask  you,  Sir,  upon  what  part  of 
your  subjects  would  you  rely  for  assistance. 

The  people  of  Ireland  have  been  uniformly  plundered  and 
oppressed.  In  return,  they  give  you  every  day  fresh  marks 


200  LETTERS  Of 

of  their  resentment.  They  despise  the  miserable  goveruoi 
you  have  sent  them*,  because  he  is  the  creature  of  Lord 
Bute;  nor  is  it  from  any  natural  confusion  in  their  ideas, 
that  they  are  so  ready  to  confound  the  original  of  a  King 
with  the  disgraceful  representation  of  him. 

The  distance  of  the  Colonies  would  make  it  impossible 
for  them  to  take  an  active  concern  in  your  affairs,  if  they 
were  as  well  affected  to  your  government  as  they  once  pre- 
tended to  be  to  your  person.  They  were  ready  enough  to 
distinguish  between  you  and  your  ministers.  They  complain- 
ed of  an  act  of  the  legislature,  but  traced  the  origin  of  it  no 
higher  than  to  the  servants  of  the  crown:  They  pleased  them- 
selves with  the  hope  that  their  Sovereign,  if  not  favourable 
to  their  cause,  at  least  was  impartial.  The  decisive,  personal 
part  you  took  against  them,  has  effectually  banished  that 
first  distinction  from  their  mindsf.  They  consider  you  as 
united  with  your  servants  against  America,  and  know  how 
to  distinguish  the  Sovereign  and  a  venal  parliament  on  one 
side,  from  the  real  sentiments  of  the  English  people  on  the 
other.  Looking  forward  to  independence,  they  might  possi- 
bly receive  you  for  their  King;  but,  if  ever  you  retire  to 
America,  be  assured  they  will  give  you  such  a  covenant  to 
digest,  as  the  presbytery  of  Scotland  would  have  been 
ashamed  to  offer  to  Charles  the  second.  They  left  their  na- 
tive land  in  search  of  freedom,  and  found  it  in  a  desart. 
Divided  as  they  are  into  a  thousand  forms  of  policy  and  re^ 
ligion,  there  is  one  point  in  which  they  all  agree: — they 

*  Viscount  Townshend,  sent  over  on  the  plan  of  being  resident  gover- 
nor. The  history  of  his  ridiculous  administration  shall  not  be  lost  to  the 
public.  Author. 

This  promise  the  author  did  not  fulfil;  but  see  his  Miscellaneous  Let- 
ters, No.  iv.  et  seq.  on  the  appointment  of  this  nobleman  to  the  Lord 
Lieutenancy.  Edit. 

|  In  the  King's  speech  of  8  November,  1768,  it  was  declared  "That  the 
spirit  of  faction  had  broken  out  afresh  in  some  of  the  colonies,  and,  in  one 
of  them,  proceeded  to  acts  of  violence  and  resistance  to  the  execution  of 
the  laws; — that  Boston  was  in  a  state  of  disobedience  to  all  law  and  go- 
vernment, and  had  proceeded  to  measures  subversive  of  the  constitution, 
and  attended  with  circumstances,  that  manifested  a  disposition  to  throw 
off  their  dependance  on  Great  Britain  " 


JUNIUS.  201 

equally  detest  the  pageantry  of  a  King,  and  the  supercilious 
hypocrisy  of  a  bishop. 

It  is  not  then  from  the  alienated  affections  of  Ireland  or 
America,  that' you  can  reasonably  look  for  assistance;  still 
less  from  the  people  of  England,  who  are  actually  contend- 
ing for  their  rights,  and  in  this  great  question,  are  parties 
against  you.  You  are  not,  however,  destitute  of  every  ap- 
pearance of  support:  You  have  all  the  Jacobites,  Nonjurors, 
Roman  Catholics,  and  Tories  of  this  country,  and  all  Scot- 
land without  exception.  Considering  from  what  family  you 
are  descended,  the  choice  of  your  friends  has  been  singular- 
ly directed;  and  truly,  Sir,  if  you  had  not  lost  the  Whig 
interest  of  England,  I  should  admire  your  dexterity  in  turn- 
ing the  hearts  of  your  enemies.  Is  it  possible  for  you  to 
place  any  confidence  in  men,  who,  before  they  are  faithful 
to  you,  must  renounce  every  opinion,  and  betray  every  prin- 
ciple, both  in  church  and  state,  which  they  inherit  from  their 
ancestors,  and  are  confirmed  in  by  their  education?  whose 
numbers  are  so  inconsiderable,  that  they  have  long  since 
been  obliged  to  give  up  the  principles  and  language  which 
distinguish  them  as  a  party,  and  to  fight  under  the  banners 
of  their  enemies?  Their  zeal  begins  with  hypocrisy,  and 
must  conclude  in  treachery.  At  first  they  deceive;  at  last 
they  betray. 

As  to  the  Scotch,  I  must  suppose  your  heart  and  under- 
standing so  biassed,  from  your  earliest  infancy,  in  their 
favour,  that  nothing  less  than  your  orvn  misfortunes  can  un- 
deceive you.  You  will  not  accept  of  the  uniform  experience 
of  your  ancestors;  and  when  once  a  man  is  determined  to 
believe,  the  very  absurdity  of  the  doctrine  confirms  him  in 
his  faith.  A  bigoted  understanding  can  draw  a  proof  of  at- 
tachment to  the  house  of  Hanover  from  a  notorious  zeal  for 
the  house  of  Stuart,  and  find  an  earnest  of  future  loyalty  in 
former  rebellions.  Appearances  are  however  in  their  favour: 
so  strongly  indeed,  that  one  would  think  they  had  forgotten 
that  you  are  their  lawful  King,  and  had  mistaken  you  for  a 
pretender  to  the  crown.  Let  it  be  admitted  then  that  the 
Scotch  are  as  sincere  in  their  present  professions,  as  if  you 

Vol.  I.  2  C 


202  LETTERS  OF 

were  in  reality  not  an  Englishman,  but  a  Briton  of  the  North. 
You  would  not  be  the  first  prince,  of  their  native  country, 
against  whom  they  have  rebelled,  nor  the  first  whom  they 
have  basely  betrayed.  Have  you  forgotten,  Sir,  or  has  your 
favourite  concealed  from  you  that  part  of  our  history,  when 
the  unhappy  Charles,  (and  he  too  had  private  virtues)  fled 
from  the  open,  avowed  indignation  of  his  English  subjects, 
and  surrendered  himself  at  discretion  to  the  good  faith  of 
his  own  countrymen.  Without  looking  for  support  in  their 
affections  as  subjects,  he  applied  only  to  their  honour  as  gen- 
tlemen, for  protection.  They  received  him  as  they  would 
your  Majesty,  with  bows,  and  smiles,  and  falsehood,  and 
kept  him  until  they  had  settled  their  bargain  with  the  English 
parliament;  then  basely  sold  their  native  king  to  the  ven- 
geance of  his  enemies.  This,  Sir,  was  not  the  act  of  a  few 
traitors,  but  the  deliberate  treachery  of  a  Scotch  parliament, 
representing  the  nation.  A  wise  prince  might  draw  from  it 
two  lessons  of  equal  utility  to  himself.  On  one  side  he  might 
learn  to  dread  the  undisguised  resentment  of  a  generous  peo- 
ple, who  dare  openly  assert  their  rights,  and  who,  in  a  just 
cause,  are  ready  to  meet  their  Sovereign  in  the  field.  On  the 
other  side,  he  would  be  taught  to  apprehend  something  far 
more  formidable; — a  fawning  treachery,  against  which  no 
prudence  can  guard,  no  courage  can  defend.  The  insidious 
smile  upon  the  cheek  would  warn  him  of  the  canker  in  the 
heart. 

From  the  uses  to  which  one  part  of  the  army  has  been  too 
frequently  applied*,  you  have  some  reason  to  expect,  that 
there  are  no  services  they  would  refuse.  Here  too  we  trace 
the  partiality  of  your  understanding.  You  take  the  sense  of 
the  army  from  the  conduct  of  the  guards,  with  the  same 
justice  with  which  you  collect  the  sense  of  the  people  from 
the  representations  of  the  ministry.  Your  marching  regi- 
ments, Sir,  will  not  make  the  guards  their  example  either  as 
soldiers  or  subjects.  They  feel  and  resent,  as  they  ought  to 
do,  that  invariable,  undistinguishing  favour  with  which  the 

*  See  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  xxiv.  in  which  the  Author  discusses 
;liis  subject  more  at  large.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  203 

guards  are  treated*;  while  those  gallant  troops,  by  whom 
every  hazardous,  every  laborious  service  is  performed,  are 
left  to  perish  in  garrisons  abroad,  or  pine  in  quarters  at  home, 
neglected  and  forgotten.  If  they  had  no  sense  of  the  great 
original  duty  they  owe  their  country,  their  resentment  would 
operate  like  patriotism,  and  leave  your  cause  to  be  defended 
by  those,  to  whom  you  have  lavished  the  rewards  and  ho- 
nours of  their  profession.  The  Praetorian  Bands,  enervated 
and  debauched  as  they  were,  had  still  strength  enough  to 
awe  the  Roman  populace:  but  when  the  distant  legions  took 
the  alarm,  they  marched  to  Rome,  and  gave  away  the  empire. 

On  this  side  then,  which  ever  way  you  turn  your  eyes,  you 
see  nothing  but  perplexity  and  distress.  You  may  determine 
to  support  the  very  ministry  who  have  reduced  your  affairs 
to  this  deplorable  situation:  you  may  shelter  yourself  under 
the  forms  of  a  parliament,  and  set  your  people  at  defiance. 
But  be  assured,  Sir,  that  such  a  resolution  would  be  as  impru- 
dent as  it  would  be  odious.  If  it  did  not  immediately  shake 
your  establishment,  it  would  rob  you  of  your  peace  of  mind 
for  ever. 

On  the  other,  how  different  is  the  prospect!  How  easy, 
how  safe  and  honourable  is  the  path  before  you!  The  Eng- 
lish nation  declare  they  are  grossly  injured  by  their  repre- 
sentatives, and  solicit  your  Majesty  to  exert  your  lawful 
prerogative,  and  give  them  an  opportunity  of  recalling  a 
trust,  which,  they  find,  has  been  scandalously  abused.  You 
are  not  to  be  told  that  the  power  of  the  House  of  Commons 

*  The  number  of  commissioned  officers  in  the  guards  are  to  the  march- 
ing regiments  as  one  to  eleven; — the  number  of  regiments  given  to  the 
guards,  compared  with  those  given  to  the  line,  is  about  three  to  one,  at  a 
moderate  computation;  consequently  the  partiality  in  favour  of  the  guards 
is  as  thirty -three  to  one. — So  much  for  the  officers. — The  private  men  have 
fourpence  a  day  to  subsist  on;  and  five  hundred  lashes,  if  they  desert.  Un- 
der this  punishment,  they  frequently  expire.  With  these  encouragements, 
it  is  supposed,  they  may  be  depended  upon,  whenever  a  certain  person 
thinks  it  necessary  to  butcher  his  fellow  subjects.  Author. 

The  impolicy  here  pointed  out  has  been  since  acknowledged  and  acted 
upon:  and  the  soldier  of  the  present  day  has  no  reason  to  complain  either 
>f  poverty  of  income,  or  severity  of  discipline.  Edit. 


204  LETTERS  OF 

is  not  original,  but  delegated  to  them  for  the  welfare  of  the 
people,  from  whom  they  received  it.  A  question  of  right 
arises  between  the  constituent  and  the  representative  body. 
By  what  authority  shall  it  be  decided?  Will  your  Majesty 
interfere  in  a  question  in  which  you  have  properly  no  imme- 
diate concern. — It  would  be  a  step  equally  odious  and  unne- 
cessary. Shall  the  Lords  be  called  upon  to  determine  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  Commons? — They  cannot  do  it 
without  a  flagrant  breach  of  the  constitution.  Or  will  you 
refer  it  to  the  judges? — They  have  often  told  your  ancestors, 
that  the  law  of  parliament  is  above  them.  What  party  then 
remains,  but  to  leave  it  to  the  people  to  determine  for  them- 
selves? They  alone  are  injured;  and  since  there  is  no  supe- 
rior power,  to  which  the  cause  can  be  referred,  they  alone 
ought  to  determine. 

I  do  not  mean  to  perplex  you  with  a  tedious  argument 
upon  a  subject  already  so  discussed,  that  inspiration  could 
hardly  throw  a  new  light  upon  it.  There  are,  however,  two 
points  of  view,  in  which  it  particularly  imports  your  Ma- 
jesty to  consider  the  late  proceedings  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. By  depriving  a  subject  of  his  birthright,  they  have 
attributed  to  their  own  vote  an  authority  equal  to  an  act  of 
the  whole  legislature;  and,  though  perhaps  not  with  the  same 
motives,  have  strictly  followed  the  example  of  the  long  par- 
liament, which  first  declared  the  regal  office  useless,  and  soon 
after  with  as  little  ceremony,  dissolved  the  House  of  Lords. 
The  same  pretended  power,  which  robs  an  English  subject 
of  his  birthright,  may  rob  an  English  King  of  his  crown.  In 
another  view,  the  resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons,  ap- 
parently not  so  dangerous  to  your  Majesty,  is  still  more 
alarming  to  your  people.  Not  contented  with  divesting  one 
man  of  his  right,  they  have  arbitrarily  conveyed  that  right  to 
another.  They  have  set  aside  a  return  as  illegal,  without 
daring  to  censure  those  officers,  who  were  particularly  ap- 
prized of  Mr. Wilkes's  incapacity,  not  only  by  the  declaration 
of  the  House,  but  expressly  by  the  writ  directed  to  them, 
nnd,  who  nevertheless  returned  him  as  duly  elected.  Thev 


JUNIUS.  205 

have  rejected  the  majority  of  votes,  the  only  criterion,  by 
which  our  laws  judge  of  the  sense  of  the  people;  they  have 
transferred  the  right  of  election  from  the  collective  to  the 
representative  body;  and  by  these  acts,  taken  separately  or 
together,  they  have  essentially  altered  the  original  constitu- 
tion of  the  House  of  Commons.  Versed,  as  your  Majesty 
undoubtedly  is,  in  the  English  history,  it  cannot  easily  es- 
cape you,  how  much  it  is  your  interest,  as  well  as  your  duty, 
to  prevent  one  of  the  three  estates  from  encroaching  upon 
the  province  of  the  other  two,  or  assuming  the  authority  of 
them  all.  When  once  they  have  departed  from  the  great 
constitutional  line,  by  which  all  their  proceedings  should  be 
directed,  who  will  answer  for  their  future  moderation?  Or 
what  assurance  will  they  give  you,  that,  when  they  have 
trampled  upon  their  equals,  they  will  submit  to  a  superior? 
Your  Majesty  may  learn  hereafter,  how  nearly  the  slave  and 
tyrant  are  allied. 

Some  of  your  council,  more  candid  than  the  rest,  admit 
the  abandoned  profligacy  of  the  present  House  of  Commons, 
but  oppose  their  dissolution  upon  an  opinion,  I  confess  not 
very  unwarrantable,  that  their  successors  would  be  equally 
at  the  disposal  of  the  treasury.  I  cannot  persuade  myself 
that  the  nation  will  have  profited  so  little  by  experience.  But 
if  that  opinion  were  well  founded,  you  might  then  gratify 
our  wishes  at  an  easy  rate,  and  appease  the  present  clamour 
against  your  government,  without  offering  any  material  in- 
jury to  the  favourite  cause  of  corruption. 

You  have  still  an  honourable  part  to  act.  The  affections 
of  your  subjects  may  still  be  recovered.  But  before  you  sub- 
due their  hearts,  you  must  gain  a  noble  victory  over  your 
own.  Discard  those  little,  personal  resentments,  which  have 
too  long  directed  your  public  conduct.  Pardon  this  man  the 
remainder  of  his  punishment;  and  if  resentment  still  pre- 
vails, make  it,  what  it  should  have  been  long  since,  an  act  not 
of  mercy,  but  contempt.  He  will  soon  fall  back  into  his  na- 
tural station, — a  silent  senator,  and  hardly  supporting  the 
weekly  eloquence  of  a  newspaper.  The  gentle  breath   of 


206  LETTERS  OF 

peace  would  leave  him  on  the  surface,  neglected  and  unre- 
moved.  It  is  only  the  tempest,  that  lifts  him  from  his  place*. 

*  It  is  evident  from  other  passages,  as  well  as  the  present,  that  Junius 
was  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  partisan  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  though  he  was  a  de- 
termined enemy  to  the  decision  of  the  House  of  Commons  with  respect  to 
the  Middlesex  election.  Mr.  Wilkes,  previous  to  the  judgment  of  the 
court  of  King's  Bench  for  two  libels,  which  are  more  particularly  touched 
upon  in  the  Editor's  note  to  Letter  xlvi.  presented  the  following  address 
and  petition  to  the  King,  to  neither  of  which,  however,  was  any  answer 
returned.  It  is  to  these  documents  that  Junius  alludes  in  the  recommen- 
dation given  in  the  foregoing  paragraph. 

TO  THE  KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 
Sire, 

I  beg  to  throw  myself  at  your  Majesty's  feet,  and  to  supplicate  that 
mercy  and  clemency  which  shine  with  such  lustre  among  your  many 
princely  virtues. 

Some  former  ministers,  whom  your  Majesty,  in  condescension  to  the 
wishes  of  your  people,  thought  proper  to  remove,  employed  every  wicked 
and  deceitful  art  to  oppress  your  subjects,  and  to  revenge  their  own  per- 
sonal cause  on  me,  whom  they  imagined  to  be  the  principal  author  of 
bringing  to  the  public  view  their  ignorance,  insufficiency,  and  treachery 
to  your  Majesty  and  the  nation. 

I  have  been  the  innocent  but  unhappy  victim  of  their  revenge.  I  was 
forced  by  their  injustice  and  violence  into  an  exile,  which  I  have  never 
ceased  for  several  years  to  consider  as  the  most  cruel  oppression,  because 
I  no  longer  could  be  under  the  benign  protection  of  your  Majesty  in  the 
?  and  of  liberty. 

With  a  heart  full  of  zeal  for  the  service  of  your  Majesty,  and  my  coun- 
try, I  implore,  Sire,  your  clemency.  My  only  hopes  of  pardon  are  founded 
in  the  great  goodness  and  benevolence  of  your  Majesty;  and  every  day  of 
freedom  you  may  be  graciously  pleased  to  permit  me  the  enjoyment  of  in 
my  dear  native  land,  shall  give  proofs  of  my  zeal  and  attachment  to  your 
service. 

lam, 

SIRE, 

Your  Majesty's  most  obedient, 

and  dutiful  subject, 
March  4,-1768.  JOHN  WILKES. 

TO  THE  KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 
The-  humble  Petition  of  John  Wilkes, 

SHEWETH, 

i'lUT  your  Petitioner,  having  stood  forth  in  support  of  the  constitutional 
glits  of  this  kingdom,  in  opposition  to  a  late  violent  administration,  hath 

been 


JUNIUS.  207 

Without  consulting  your  minister,  call  together  your 
whole  council.  Let  it  appear  to  the  public  that  you  can  deter- 
mine and  act  for  yourself.  Come  forward  to  your  people. 
Lay  aside  the  wretched  formalities  of  a  King,  and  speak  to 
your  subjects  with  the  spirit  of  a  man,  and  in  the  language 
of  a  gentleman.  Tell  them  you  have  been  fatally  deceived. 
The  acknowledgment  will  be  no  disgrace,  but  rather  an  ho- 
nour to  your  understanding.  Tell  them  you  are  determined 
to  remove  every  cause  of  complaint  against  your  govern- 
ment; that  you  will  give  your  confidence  to  no  man,  who 
does  not  possess  the  confidence  of  your  subjects;  and  leave 
it  to  themselves  to  determine,  by  their  conduct  at  a  future 
election,  whether  or  no  it  be  in  reality  the  general  sense  of 
the  nation,  that  their  rights  have  been  arbitrarily  invaded  by 
the  present  House  of  Commons,  and  the  constitution  betray- 
ed. They  will  then  do  justice  to  their  representatives  and  to 
themselves. 

These  sentiments,  Sir,  and  the  stile  they  are  conveyed  in, 
may  be  offensive,  perhaps,  because  they  are  new  to  you.  Ac- 
customed to  the  language  of  courtiers,  you  measure  their 
affections  by  the  vehemence  of  their  expressions;  and,  when 
they  only  praise  you  indirectly,  you  admire  their  sincerity. 
But  this  is  not  a  time  to  trifle  with  your  fortune.  They  de- 
ceive you,  Sir,  who  tell  you  that  you  have  many  friends, 
whose  affections  are  founded  upon  a  principle  of  personal 
attachment.  The  first  foundation  of  friendship  is  not  the 

been  severely  prosecuted  at  law,  and  sentenced  to  pay  a  heavy  fine,  and  to 
suffer  an  imprisonment  of  twenty-two  months;  that  the  unfair  methods 
employed  to  convict  your  petitioner  have  been  palpable  and  manifest;  that 
the  petitioner  has  always  been  your  Majesty's  loyal  subject,  zealously  at- 
tached to  your  illustrious  house,  and  will  remain  the  same  to  the  end  of 
his  life;  that  he  looks  up  to  the  throne  only  for  that  protection  and  justice, 
which  eminently  distinguish  your  Majesty's  royal  character;  that  your 
petitioner,  with  the  greatest  deference,  submits  the  whole  of  his  case  to 
your  Majesty's  consideration,  and  humbly  supplicates  your  royal  clemency. 
And  your  Petitioner, 

as  in  duty  bound, 

shall  ever  pray. 
,  King's  Bench  Prison,  JOHN  WILKES 

Nov.  28,  176S. 


208  LETTERS  OF 

power  of  conferring  benefits,  but  the  equality  with  which 
they  are  received,  and  may  be  returned.  The  fortune,  which 
made  you  a  King,  forbad  you  to  have  a  friend.  It  is  a  law  of 
nature  which  cannot  be  violated  with  impunity.  The  mis- 
taken Prince,  who  looks  for  friendship,  will  find  a  favourite, 
and  in  that  favourite  the  ruin  of  his  affairs. 

The  people  of  England  are  loyal  to  the  house  of  Hanover, 
not  from  a  vain  preference  of  one  family  to  another,  but  from 
a  conviction  that  the  establishment  of  that  family  was  neces- 
sary to  the  support  of  their  civil  and  religious  liberties.  This, 
Sir,  is  a  principle  of  allegiance  equally  solid  and  rational;— 
fit  for  Englishmen  to  adopt,  and  well  worthy  of  your  Ma- 
jesty's encouragement.  We  cannot  long  be  deluded  by  no- 
minal distinctions.  The  name  of  Stuart,  of  itself,  is  only  con- 
temptible;—armed  with  the  sovereign  authority,  their  prin- 
ciples are  formidable.  The  Prince,  who  imitates  their  con- 
duct, should  be  warned  by  their  example;  and  while  he 
plumes  himself  upon  the  security  of  his  title  to  the  crown, 
should  remember  that,  as  it  was  acquired  by  one  revolution, 
it  may  be  lost  by  another*. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXXVI. 

TO  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  GRAFTON. 
My  Lord,  14  Feb.  1770. 

If  I  were  personally  your  enemy,  I  might  pity  and  for- 
give you.  You  have  every  claim  to  compassion,  that  can 
arise  from  misery  and  distress.  The  condition  you  are  re- 
duced to  would  disarm  a  private  enemy  of  his  resentment, 
and  leave  no  consolation  to  the  most  vindictive  spirit,  but 

*  A  writer  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  who  employed  the  signature  ol 
Modestus,  and  is  occasionally  noticed  by  Junius,  under  some  one  of  his 
auxiliary  signatures,  published  in  the  same  newspaper  u  counter-epistle 
to  the  King,  but  it  does  not  appear  to  have  attracted  much  attention.  It 
was  the  peculiar  misfortune  of  the  administration  of  the  period  before  us, 
to  be  more  ruined  by  their  own  writers  than  their  own  misdeeds.  The  ch1.'.' 
of  this  letter  of  Modest  us  is  Dec.  23,  1769.  Edit 


JUNIUS.  209 

chat  such  an  object,  as  you  are,  would  disgrace  the  dignity  of 
revenge*.  But  in  the  relation  you  have  borne  to  this  coun- 
try, you  have  no  title  to  indulgence;  and  if  I  had  followed 
the  dictates  of  my  own  opinion,  I  never  should  have  allowed 
you  the  respite  of  a  moment.  In  your  public  character,  you 
have  injured  every  subject  of  the  empire;  and  though  an  in- 
dividual is  not  authorized  to  forgive  the  injuries  done  to  so- 
ciety, he  is  called  upon  to  assert  his  separate  share  in  the 
public  resentment.  I  submitted  however  to  the  judgment  of 
men,  more  moderate,  perhaps  more  candid,  than  myself. 
For  my  own  part,  I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  those  pru- 
dent forms  of  decorum,  those  gentle  rules  of  discretion,  which 
some  men  endeavour  to  unite  with  the  conduct  of  the  greatest 
and  most  hazardous  affairs.  Engaged  in  the  defence  of  an 
honourable  cause,  I  would  take  a  decisive  part. — I  should 
scorn  to  provide  for  a  future  retreat,  or  to  keep  terms  with  a 
man,  who  preserves  no  measures  with  the  public.  Neither 
the  abject  submission  of  deserting  his  post  in  the  hour  of 
danger,  nor  even  the  f  sacred  shield  of  cowardice  should 
protect  him.  I  would  pursue  him  through  life,  and  try  the 
last  exertion  of  my  abilities  to  preserve  the  perishable  infa- 
my of  his  name,  and  make  it  immortal. 

What  then,  my  Lord,  is  this  the  event  of  all  the  sacrifices 
you  have  made  to  Lord  Bute's  patronage,  and  to  your  own 
unfortunate  ambition?  Was  it  for  this  you  abandoned  your 
earliest  friendships, — the  warmest  connexions  of  your  youth, 
and  all  those  honourable  engagements,  by  which  you  once 
solicited,  and  might  have  acquired  the  esteem  of  your  coun- 
try? Have  you  secured  no  recompence  for  such  a  waste  of 

*  The  duke  had  now  resigned  the  office  of  first  lord  of  the  treasury, 
harassed  and  worn  out  by  the  attacks  of  Lord  Chatham  and  his  friends  in 
parliament,  and  of  Junius,  and  the  petitioners  and  remonstrators  from  all 
parts  of  the  country  out  of  parliament.  He  resigned  abruptly,  and  left  the 
cabinet  in  some  confusion,  Lord  Camden  having  not  long  before  been 
compelled  to  leave  the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor,  and  Mr.  Charles  Yorke, 
who  had  been  called  to  succeed  him,  having  killed  himself  through  mere 
political  vexation.  The  Duke  of  Grafton  wls  succeeded  by  Lord  North. 
— Edit. 

f Sacro  tremuere  timcre.  Everycowardnretend3tobe  planet-struck 

Vol.  I.  2  D 


210  LETTERS  OF 

honour? — Unhappy  man!  what  party  will  receive  the  com^ 
mon  deserter  of  all  parties?  Without  a  client  to  flatter,  with- 
out a  friend  to  console  you,  and  with  only  one  companion 
from  the  honest  house  of  Bloomsbury,  you  must  now  retire 
into  a  dreadful  solitude.  At  the  most  active  period  of  life, 
you  must  quit  the  busy  scene,  and  conceal  yourself  from  the 
world,  if  you  would  hope  to  save  the  wretched  remains  of  a 
ruined  reputation.  The  vices  operate  like  age, — bring  on 
disease  before  its  time,  and  in  the  prime  of  youth  leave  the 
character  broken  and  exhausted. 

Yet  vour  conduct  has  been  mysterious,  as  well  as  con- 
temptible. Where  is  now  that  firmness,  or  obstinacy  so  long 
boasted  of  by  your  friends,  and  acknowledged  by  your  ene- 
mies? We  were  taught  to  expect,  that  you  would  not  leave 
the  ruin  of  this  country  to  be  compleated  by  other  hands, 
but  were  determined  either  to  gain  a  decisive  victory  over 
the  constitution,  or  to  perish  bravely  at  least  behind  the  last 
dyke  of  the  prerogative.  You  knew  the  danger,  and  might 
have  been  provided  for  it.  You  took  sufficient  time  to  pre- 
pare for  a  meeting  with  your  parliament,  to  confirm  the 
mercenary  fidelity  of  your  dependants,  and  to  suggest  to 
your  Sovereign  a  language  suited  to  his  dignity  at  least,  if 
not  to  his  benevolence  and  wisdom.  Yet,  while  the  whole 
kingdom  was  agitated  with  anxious  expectation  upon  one 
great  point,  you  meanly  evaded  the  question,  and,  instead 
of  the  explicit  firmness  and  decision  of  a  King,  gave  us  no- 
thing but  the  misery  of  a  ruined  *  grazier,  and  the  whining 

*  There  was  something  wonderfully  pathetic  in  the  mention  of  the 
horned  cattle.  Author- 

It  was  with  this  term  that  the  speech  from  the  throne  may  be  said  to 
have  commenced — in  allusion  to  the  distemper  among  the  horned  cattle,  a 
kind  of  murrain  which  had  prevailed  largely  on  the  continent,  and  to  pre- 
vent the  importation  of  which  into  this  country,  various  regulations  had 
been  adopted  by  the  privy  council  during  the  recess.  It  was  impossible 
for  Junius  to  restrain  from  this  stroke  of  pleasantry  upon  the  Duke  of 
Grafton,  the  inditer  or  composer  of  the  royal  speech. 

While  the  speech  thus  condescended  to  take  notice  of  the  veterinary 
concerns  of  the  nation,  the  petitions  and  remonstrances  that  had  been  pre- 
sented from  the  city,  from  Westminster,  from  Surrey,  York,  and  other 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  were  purposely  disregarded  and  treated  with  silent 
contempt.    Edit. 


JUNIUS.  211 

piety  of  a  Methodist.  We  had  reason  to  expect,  that  notice 
would  have  been  taken  of  the  petitions  which  the  King  has 
received  from  the  English  nation;  and  although  I  can  con- 
ceive some  personal  motives  for  not  yielding  to  them,  I  can 
find  none,  in  common  prudence  or  decency,  for  treating  them 
with  contempt.  Be  assured,  my  Lord,  the  English  people 
will  not  tamely  submit  to  this  unworthy  treatment; — they 
had  a  right  to  be  heard,  and  their  petitions,  if  not  granted, 
deserved  to  be  considered.  Whatever  be  the  real  views  and 
doctrine  of  a  court,  the  Sovereign  should  be  taught  to  pre- 
serve some  forms  of  attention  to  his  subjects,  and  if  he  will 
not  redress  their  grievances,  not  to  make  them  a  topic  of 
jest  and  mockery  among  lords  and  ladies  of  the  bedcham- 
ber. Injuries  may  be  atoned  for  and  forgiven;  but  insults 
admit  of  no  compensation.  They  degrade  the  mind  in  its 
own  esteem,  and  force  it  to  recover  its  level  by  revenge. 
This  neglect  of  the  petitions  was  however  a  part  of  your 
original  plan  of  government,  nor  will  any  consequences  it 
has  produced  account  for  your  deserting  your  Sovereign, 
in  the  midst  of  that  distress,  in  which  you  and  your  *  new 
friends  had  involved  him.  One  would  think,  my  Lord,  you 
might  have  taken  this  spirited  resolution  before  you  had  dis- 
solved the  last  of  those  early  connexions,  which  once,  even 
in  your  own  opinion,  did  honour  to  your  youth; — before  you 
had  obliged  Lord  Granby  to  quit  a  service  he  was  attached 
to; — before  you  had  discarded  one  chancellorf,  and  killed 
another^.  To  what  an  abject  condition  have  you  laboured  to 
reduce  the  best  of  princes,  when  the  unhappy  man,  who 
yields  at  last  to  such  personal  instance  and  solicitation,  as 
never  can  be  fairly  employed  against  a  subject,  feels  himself 
degraded  by  his  compliance,  and  is  unable  to  survive  the 
disgraceful  honours  which  his  gracious  Sovereign  had  com- 
pelled him  to  accept.  He  was  a  man  of  spirit,  for  he  had  a 

*  The  Bedford  party. 

f  See  note  *  in  p.  209.  Lord  Granby  hud  re  signed  about  the  time  of  the 
dismission  of  Lord  Camden,  and  for  similar  reasons. 

|  Honourable  Charles  Yorke,  brother  of  Lord  Hardwickr  See  the 
above  note  in  p.  209- 


■2 is  LETTERS  OF 

quick  sense  of  shame,  and  death  has  redeemed  his  charac- 
ter. I  know  your  Grace  too  well  to  appeal  to  your  feelings 
upon  this  event;  but  there  is  another  heart,  not  yet,  I  hope, 
quite  callous  to  the  touch  of  humanity,  to  which  it  ought  to 
be  a  dreadful  lesson  for  ever*. 

Now,  my  Lord,  let  us  consider  the  situation  to  which  you 
have  conducted,  and  in  which  you  have  thought  it  adviseable 
to  abandon  your  royal  master.  Whenever  the  people  have 
complained,  and  nothing  better  could  be  said  in  defence  of 
the  measures  of  government,  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  an- 
swer us,  though  not  very  fairly,  with  an  appeal  to  the  private 
virtues  of  our  Sovereign.  "  Has  he  not,  to  relieve  the  peo- 
ple, surrendered  a  considerable  part  of  his  revenue? — Has 
he  not  made  the  judges  independent,  by  fixing  them  in  their 
places  for  life?" — My  Lord,  we  acknowledge  the  gracious 
principle,  which  gave  birth  to  these  concessions,  and  have 
nothing  to  regret,  but  that  it  has  never  been  adhered  to.  At 
the  end  of  seven  years,  we  are  loaded  with  a  debt  of  above 
five  hundred  thousand  pounds  upon  the  civil  list,  and  we 
now  see  the  chancellor  of  Great  Britain  tyrannically  forced 
out  of  his  office,  not  for  want  of  abilities,  not  for  want  of  in- 
tegrity, or  of  attention  to  his  duty,  but  for  delivering  his 
honest  opinion  in  parliament,  upon  the  greatest  constitu- 
tional question,  that  has  arisen  since  the  revolutionf. — We 

*  The  most  secret  particulars  of  this  detestable  transaction  shall,  in 
due  time,  be  given  to  the  public.  The  people  shall  know  what  kind  of  man 
they  have  to  deal  with. 

f  The  question  here  alluded  to,  was  the  legality  of  the  vote  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  which  seated  Mr.  Luttrell  for  the  county  of  Middlesex.  A 
great  debate  arose  upon  this  subject  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  open- 
ing of  the  session,  January  9,  1770,  in  which  Lord  Camden  expressed  his 
decided  disapprobation  of  the  conduct  pursued  by  the  lower  house,  in  the 
following  energetic  terms: — "  I  consider  the  decision  upon  that  affair,  as 
a  direct  attack  upon  the  first  principles  of  the  constitution;  and  if,  in  the 
judicial  exercise  of  my  office,  I  were  to  pay  any  regard  to  that,  or  to  any 
other  such  vote,  passed  in  opposition  to  the  known  and  established  laws 
of  the  land,  I  should  look  upon  myself  as  a  traitor  to  my  trust,  and  an 
enemy  to  my  country." 

This  public  avowal  of  an  opinion,  so  contrary  to  the  proceedings,  if  no 
to  the  views,  of  administration,  was  considered  by  them  as  a  total  defec- 
tion; and  on  the  17th  of  the  same  month,  Lord  Camden  received  a  mes- 
sage 


JUNIUS.  213 

.are  not  to  whose  private  virtues  you  appeal;  the  theory  of 
auch  a  government  is  falsehood  and  mockery; — the  practice 
is  oppression.  You  have  laboured  then  (though  I  confess  to 
no  purpose)  to  rob  your  master  of  the  only  plausible  answer, 
that  ever  was  given  in  defence  of  his  government, — of  the 
opinion,  which  the  people  had  conceived  of  his  personal 
honour  and  integrity. — The  Duke  of  Bedford  was  more 
moderate  than  your  Grace.  He  only  forced  his  master  to 
violate  a  solemn  promise  made  to  an  *  individual.  But  you, 
my  Lord,  have  successfully  extended  your  advice  to  every 
political,  every  moral  engagement,  that  could  bind  either  the 
magistrate  or  the  man.  The  condition  of  a  King  is  often 
miserable,  but  it  required  your  Grace's  abilities  to  make  it 
contemptible. — You  will  say  perhaps  that  the  faithful  ser- 
vants, in  whose  hands  you  have  left  him,  are  able  to  retrieve 
his  honour,  and  to  support  his  government.  You  have  pub- 
licly declared,  even  since  your  resignation,  that  you  approved 
of  their  measures,  and  admired  their  characters,  particularly 
that  of  the  Earl  of  Sandwichf.  What  a  pity  it  is,  that,  with 
all  this  approbation,  you  should  think  it  necessary  to  sepa- 
rate yourself  from  such  amiable  companions.  You  forget, 
my  Lord,  that  while  you  are  lavish  in  the  praise  of  men 
whom  you  desert,  you  are  publicly  opposing  your  conduct, 
to  your  opinions,  and  depriving  yourself  of  the  only  plausi- 
ble pretence  you  had  for  leaving  your  Sovereign  overwhelm- 
ed with  distress;  I  call  it  plausible,  for,  in  truth,  there  is  no 
reason  whatsoever,  less  than  the  frowns  of  your  master,  that 
could  justify  a  man  of  spirit  for  abandoning  his  post  at  a 
moment  so  critical  and  important?  It  is  in  vain  to  evade  the 
question.  If  you  will  not  speak  out,  the  public  have  a  righr 
to  judge  from  appearances.  We  are  authorized  to  conclude, 
that  you  either  differed  from  your  colleagues,  whose  mea- 

sage  from  the  secretary  of  state's  office,  desiring,  in  his  Majestv's  name, 
that  he  would  deliver  up  the  seals  that  evening  at  seven  o'clock;  which  he 
did  accordingly,  into  his  Majesty's  own  hands.  Edit. 

*  Mr.  Stuart  Mackenzie. — See  the  instance  referred  to  in  Letter  xu 
note,  page  92-  Edit. 

\  Lord  Sandwich  had  been  first  Lord  of  the  Admira  is  aga'r 

nominated  to  this  post  in  1771.  Edit. 


214  LETTERS  OF 

sures  you  still  affect  to  defend,  or  that  you  thought  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  King's  affairs  no  longer  tenable.  You  are 
at  liberty  to  choose  between  the  hypocrite  and  the  coward. 
Your  best  friends  are  in  doubt  which  way  they  shall  incline. 
Your  country  unites  the  characters,  and  gives  you  credit  for 
them  both.  For  my  own  part,  I  see  nothing  inconsistent  in 
your  conduct.  You  began  with  betraying  the  people,— you 
conclude  with  betraying  the  King. 

In  your  treatment  of  particular  persons,  you  have  pre- 
served the  uniformity  of  your  character.  Even  Mr.  Brad- 
shaw  declares,  that  no  man  was  ever  so  ill  used  as  himself. 
As  to  the  provision*  you  have  made  for  his  family,  he  was 
intitled  to  it  by  the  house  he  lives  in.  The  successor  of  one 
Chancellor  might  well  pretend  to  be  the  rival  of  another.  It 
is  the  breach  of  private  friendship  which  touches  Mr.  Brad- 
shaw:  and  to  say  the  truth,  when  a  man  of  his  rank  and  abi- 
lities had  taken  so  active  a  part  in  your  affairs,  he  ought  not 
to  have  been  let  down  at  last  with  a  miserable  pension  of 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  a  year.  Colonel  Luttrell,  Mr.  Ons- 
low, and  Governor  Burgoyne,  were  equally  engaged  with 
you,  and  have  rather  more  reason  to  complain  than  Mr.  Brad- 
shavv.  These  are  men,  my  Lord,  whose  friendship  you 
should  have  adhered  to  on  the  same  principle,  on  which  you 
deserted  Lord  Rockingham,  Lord  Chatham,  Lord  Camden, 
and  the  Duke  of  Portland.  We  can  easily  account  for  your 
violating  your  engagements  with  men  of  honour,  but  why 
should  you  betray  your  natural  connexions?  Why  separate. 

*  A  pension  of  1500/.  per  annum,  insured  upon  the  4  1-half  per  cents, 
(he  was  too  cunning  to  trust  to  Irish  security)  for  the  lives  of  himself  and  all 
his  sons.  This  gentleman,  who  a  very  few  years  ago  was  clerk  to  a  con- 
tractor for  forage,  and  afterwards  exalted  to  a  petty  post  in  the  war  office, 
thought  it  necessary  (as  soon  as  he  was  appointed  secretary  to  the  treasu- 
ry) to  take  that  great  house  in  Lincoln's-Inn- Fields,  in  which  the  earl  of 
Northington  had  resided,  while  he  was  lord  high  chancellor  of  Great  Bri- 
tain. As  to  the  pension,  Lord  North  very  solemnly  assured  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  no  pension  was  ever  so  well  deserved  as  Mr.  Bradshaw's.— 
N.  B.  Lord  Camden  and  Sir  Jefiery  Amherst  are  not  near  so  well  pro- 
vided for,  and  Sir  Edward  Hawke,  who  saved  the  state,  retires  with  tw© 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  on  the  Irish  establishment,  from  which  he  in  fac*. 
receives  less  than  Mr.  Bradshaw's  pension. 


JUNIUS.  215 

yourself  from  Lord  Sandwich,  Lord  Gower,  and  Mr.  Rig'>y» 
or  ltave  th  three  worthy  gentlemen  abovementioned  to 
shift  for  themselves?  With  all  the  fashionable  indulgence  of 
the  times,  this  country  does  not  abound  in  characters  like 
theirs;  and  you  may  find  it  a  difficult  matter  to  recruit  the 
black  catalogue  of  your  friends. 

The  recollection  of  the  royal  patent  you  sold  to  Mr.  Hine, 
obliges  me  to  say  a  word  in  defence  of  a  man  whom  you  have 
taken  the  most  dishonourable  means  to  injure*.  I  do  not  re- 
fer to  the  sham  prosecution  which  you  affected  to  carry  on 
against  him.  On  that  ground,  I  doubt  not  he  is  prepared  to 
meet  you  with  tenfold  recrimination,  and  set  you  at  defiance. 
The  injury  you  have  done  him  affects  his  moral  character. 
You  knew  that  the  offer  to  purchase  the  reversion  of  a  place, 
which  has  heretofore  been  sold  under  a  decree  of  the  court 
of  Chancery,  however  imprudent  in  his  situation,  would  no 
way  tend  to  cover  him  with  that  sort  of  guilt  which  you 
wished  to  fix  upon  him  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  You  la- 
boured then,  by  every  species  of  false  suggestion,  and  even 
by  publishing  counterfeit  letters,  to  have  it  understood,  that 
he  had  proposed  terms  of  accomodation  to  you,  and  had  of- 
fered to  abandon  his  principles,  his  party,  and  his  friends. 
You  consulted  your  own  breast  for  a  character  of  consum- 
mate treachery,  and  gave  it  to  the  public  for  that  of  Mr. 
Vaughan.  I  think  myself  obliged  to  do  this  justice  to  an  in- 
jured man,  because  I  was  deceived  by  the  appearances 
thrown  out  by  your  Grace,  and  have  frequently  spoken  of 
his  conduct  with  indignation.  If  he  really  be,  what  I  think 
him,  honest,  though  mistaken,  he  will  be  happy  in  recovering 
his  reputation,  though  at  the  expense  of  his  understanding. 
Here,  I  see,  the  matter  is  likely  to  rest.  Your  Grace  is  afraid 
to  carry  on  the  prosecution.  Mr.  Hine  keeps  quiet  posses- 
sion of  his  purchase;  and  Governor  Burgoyne,  relieved  from 
the  apprehension  of  refunding  the  money,  sits  down  for  the 
remainder  of  his  life,  infamous  and  contented. 

I  believe,  my  Lord,  I  may  now  take  my  leave  of  you  for 
ever.  You  are  no  longer  that  resolute  minister,  who  had  spi- 

*  See  Private  Letters,  Ncs.  15  and  1".  and  note  to  p.  18.V  of  this  vol.— - 
Edit. 


216  LETTERS  OF 

rit  to  support  the  most  violent  measures;  who  compensated 
for  the  want  of  great  and  good  qualities,  by  a  brave  deter- 
mination, (which  some  people  admired  and  relied  on)  to 
maintain  himself  without  them.  The  reputation  of  obstinacy 
and  perseverance  might  have  supplied  the  place  of  all  the  ab- 
sent virtues.  You  have  now  added  the  last  negative  to  your 
character,  and  meanly  confessed  that  you  are  destitute  of 
the  common  spirit  of  a  man.  Retire  then,  my  Lord,  and 
hide  your  blushes  from  the  world;  for,  with  such  a  load  of 
shame,  even  black  may  change  its  colour.  A  mind  such  as 
yours,  in  the  solitary  hours  of  domestic  enjoyment,  may  still 
find  topics  of  consolation.  You  may  find  it  in  the  memory 
of  violated  friendship;  in  the  afflictions  of  an  accomplished 
prince,  whom  you  have  disgraced  and  deserted,  and  in  the 
agitations  of  a  great  country,  driven,  by  your  councils,  to  the 
brink  of  destruction. 

The  palm  of  ministerial  firmness  is  now  transferred  to 
Lord  North.  He  tells  us  so  himself,  with  the  plenitude  of 
the  ore  rotunda*;  and  I  am  ready  enough  to  believe,  that, 
while  he  can  keep  his  place,  he  will  not  easily  be  persuaded 
to  resign  it.  Your  Grace  was  the  firm  minister  of  yesterday: 
Lord  North  is  the  firm  minister  of  to-day.  To-morrow,  per- 
haps, his  Majesty,  in  his  wisdom,  may  give  us  a  rival  for 
you  both.  You  are  too  well  acquainted  with  the  temper  of 
your  late  allies,  to  think  it  possible  that  Lord  North  should 
be  permitted  to  govern  this  country.  If  we  may  believe 
common  fame,  they  have  shewn  him  their  superiority  al- 
ready. His  Majesty  is  indeed  too  gracious  to  insult  his  sub- 
jects, by  choosing  his  first  minister  from  among  the  domes- 
tics of  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  That  would  have  been  too 
gross  an  outrage  to  the  three  kingdoms.  Their  purpose,  how- 
ever, is  equally  answered  by  pushing  forward  this  unhappy 
figuret,  and  forcing  it  to  bear  the  odium  of  measures,  which 
they  in  reality  direct.  Without  immediately  appearing  to 

*  Tins  eloquent  person  has  got  as  far  as  the  discipline  of  Demosthenes, 
lie  constantly  speaks  with  pebbles  in  his  mouth,  to  improve  his  articulation 

f  Those  who  had  the  pleasure  of  being1  acquainted  with  the  amiable 
Earl  of  Guilford,  hero  spoken  of,  or  have  in  any  other  way  duly  estimated 
his  virtues,  will  feel  the  bitterness  of  this  sarcasm,  though  they  must  ac- 
knowledge its  truth.     Edit. 


JUNIUS.  217 

govern,  they  possess  the  power,  and  distribute  the  emolu- 
ments of  government  as  they  think  proper.  They  still  adhere 
to  the  spirit  of  that  calculation,  which  made  Mr.  Luttrell  re- 
presentative of  Middlesex.  Far  from  regretting  your  re- 
treat, they  assure  us  very  gravely,  that  it  increases  the  real 
strength  of  the  ministry.  According  to  this  way  of  reason- 
ing, they  will  probably  grow  stronger,  and  more  flourishing, 
every  hour  they  exist;  for  I  think  there  is  hardly  a  day  passes 
in  which  some  one  or  other  of  his  Majesty's  servants  does 
not  leave  them  to  improve  by  the  loss  of  his  assistance.  But, 
alas!  their  countenances  speak  a  different  language.  When 
the  Members  drop  off,  the  main  body  cannot  be  insensible  of 
its  approaching  dissolution.  Even  the  violence  of  their  pro- 
ceedings is  a  signal  of  despair.  Like  broken  tenants,  who 
have  had  warning  to  quit  the  premises,  they  curse  their  land- 
lord, destroy  the  fixtures,  throw  every  thing  into  confusion, 
and  care  not  what  mischief  they  do  to  the  estate. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XXXVII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  19  March,  1770. 

I  believe  there  is  no  man,  however  indifferent  about  the 
interests  of  this  country,  who  will  not  readily  confess  that 
the  situation,  to  which  we  are  now  reduced,  whether  it  has 
arisen  from  the  violence  of  faction,  or  from  an  arbitrary 
system  of  government,  justifies  the  most  melancholy  appre- 
hensions, and  calls  for  the  exertion  of  whatever  wisdom  or 
vigour  is  left  among  us.  The  King's  answer  to  the  remon- 
strance of  the  city  of  London*,  and  the  measures  since 

*  The  city  of  London,  the  city  and  liberty  of  Westminster,  the  counties 
of  Middlesex,  Surry,  &c.  had  presented  petitions  to  his  Majesty  to  dis- 
solve the  parliament,  in  consequence  of  the  illegal  rejection  of  Wilkes  by 
the  lower  House,  after  having  been  returned  for  the  fourth  time  as  a 
knight  of  the  shire  for  the  county  of  Middlesex.  These  petitions  had  not 
been  graciously  received;  and  the  petitioners  next  assumed  a  bolder  tone, 
and  approached  the  throne  •with  remonstrances  upon  the  answers  that  had 

Vol.  I.  2  E  been 


218  LETTERS  OF 

adopted  by  the  ministry,  amount  to  a  plain  declaration  that 
the  principle,  on  which  Mr.  Luttrell  was  seated  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  is  to  be  supported  in  all  its  consequences,  and 
carried  to  its  utmost  extent.  The  same  spirit,  which  violated 

been  returned  to  them.  The  remonstrance  presented  by  the  city  of  West- 
minster is  contained  in  note  to  Private  Letter,  No.  22.  The  remonstrance 
of  the  Lord  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Livery,  here  referred  to,  was,  after 
some  difficulty,  presented  to  his  Majesty,  Mar.  14,  1770.  For  the  particu- 
lars of  this  dispute,  see  Editor's  note  to  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  lxx. 
The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  remonstrance,  &c. 

TO  THE  KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 

The  humble  Address,  Remonstrance,  and  Petition,  of  the  Lord  Mayor, 
Aldermen,  and  Livery  of  the  city  of  London,  in  Common  Hall  assem- 
bled. 

"  May  it  please  your  JlZajesty, 
"  We  have  already  in  our  petition  dutifully  represented  to  your  Majesty, 
the  chief  injuries  we  have  sustained.  We  are  unwilling  to  believe  that  your 
Majesty  can  slight  the  desires  of  your  people,  or  be  regardless  of  their 
affection,  and  deaf  to  their  complaints.  Yet  their  complaints  remain  un- 
answered; their  injuries  are  confirmed;  and  the  only  judge  removeable  at 
the  pleasure  of  the  crown,  has  been  dismissed  from  his  high  office,  for 
defending  in  parliament,  the  law  and  the  constitution. 

"  We,  therefore,  venture  once  more  to  address  ourselves  to  your  Ma- 
jesty, as  to  the  father  of  your  people;  as  to  him  who  must  be  both  able  and 
willing  to  redress  our  grievances;  and  we  repeat  our  application  with  the 
greater  propriety,  because  we  see  the  instruments  of  our  wrongs,  who 
have  carried  into  execution  the  measures  of  which  we  complain,  more 
particularly  distinguished  by  your  Majesty's  royal  bounty  and  favour. 

"  Under  the  same  secret  and  malign  influence,  which  through  each  suc- 
cessive administration  has  defeated  every  good,  and  suggested  every  bad 
intention,  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  have  deprived  your  peo- 
ple of  their  dearest  rights. 

"  They  have  done  a  deed  more  ruinous  in  its  consequences  than  the  levy- 
ing of  ship  money  by  Charles  the  first;  or  the  dispensing  power  assumed 
by  James  the  second.  A  deed,  which  must  vitiate  all  the  future  proceed- 
ings of  this  parliament,  for  the  acts  of  the  legislature  itself  can  no  more 
be  valid  without  a  legal  House  of  Commons,  than  without  a  legal  Prince 
upon  the  throne. 

"  Representatives  of  the  people  are  essential  to  the  making  of  laws, 
and  there  is  a  time  when  it  is  morally  demonstrable,  that  men  cease  to  be 
representatives;  that  time  is  now  arrived:  The  present  House  of  Com- 
mons do  not  represent  the  people. 

"  We  owe  to  your  Majesty,  an  obedience  under  the  restrictions  of  the 
laws  for  the  calling  and  duration  of  parliaments;  and  your  Majesty  owes 

to 


JUNIUS.  219 

the  freedom  of  election,  now  invades  the  declaration  and 
bill  of  rights,  and  threatens  to  punish  the  subject  for  exer- 
cising a  privilege,  hitherto  undisputed,  of  petitioning  the 
crown.  The  grievances  of  the  people  are  aggravated  by  in- 
to us,  that  our  representation,  free  from  the  force  of  arms  or  corruption, 
should  be  preserved  to  us  in  parliament.  It  was  for  this  we  successfully 
struggled  under  James  the  second;  for  this  we  seated,  and  have  faithfully 
supported  your  Majesty's  family  on  the  throne:  The  people  have  been  in- 
variably uniform  in  their  object,  though  the  different  mode  of  attack  has 
called  for  a  different  defence. 

"  Under  James  the  second,  they  complained  that  the  sitting  of  parlia- 
ment was  interrupted,  because  it  was  not  corruptly  subservient  to  h's  de- 
signs: We  complain  now,  that  the  sitting  of  this  parliament  is  not  inter- 
rupted, because  it  is  corruptedly  subservient  to  the  designs  of  your  Ma- 
jesty's ministers.  Had  the  parliament,  under  James  the  second,  been  as 
submissive  to  his  commands,  as  the  parliament  is  at  this  day  to  the  dictates 
of  a  minister;  instead  of  clamours  for  its  meeting,  the  nation  would  hare 
rung,  as  now,  with  outcries  for  its  dissolution. 

"The  forms  of  the  constitution,  like  those  of  religion,  were  not  estab- 
lished for  the  form's  sake,  but  for  the  substance;  and  we  call  GOD  and 
men  to  witness,  that  as  we  do  not  owe  our  liberty  to  those  nice  and  subtle 
distinctions,  whicli  places  and  pensions,  and  lucrative  employments  have 
invented;  so  neither  will  we  be  deprived  of  it  by  them;  but  as  it  was  gain- 
ed by  the  stern  virtue  of  our  ancestors,  by  the  virtue  of  their  descendants 
it  shall  be  preserved. 

'.*  Since,  therefore,  the  misdeeds  of  your  Majesty's  ministers,  in  violat- 
ing the  freedom  of  election,  and  depraving  the  noble  constitution  of  par- 
liaments, are  notorious,  as  well  as  subversive  of  the  fundamental  laws  and 
liberties  of  this  realm;  and  since  your  Majesty,  both  in  honour  and  justice, 
is  obliged  inviolably  to  preserve  them,  according  to  the  oath  made  to  GOD 
and  your  subjects  at  your  coronation:  We  your  Majesty's  remonstrants 
assure  ourselves,  that  your  Majesty  will  restore  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment and  quiet  of  your  people,  byr  dissolving  this  parliament,  and  remov- 
ing those  evil  ministers  for  ever  from  your  councils." 

To  which  His  Majesty  returned  the  following  answer: 
"  I  shall  always  be  ready  to  receive  the  requests,  and  to  listen  to  the 
complaints  of  my  subjects;  but  it  gives  me  great  concern,  to  find  that  any 
of  them  should  have  been  so  far  misled,  as  to  offer  me  an  address  and  re- 
monstrance, the  contents  of  which  I  cannot  but  consider  as  disrespectful 
to  me,  injurious  to  my  parliament,  and  irreconcileable  to  the  principles  of 
the  constitution. 

"  I  have  ever  made  the  law  of  the  land  the  rule  of  my  conduct,  esteem- 
ing it  my  chief  glory  to  reign  over  a  free  people:  with  this  view,  I  have 
always  been  careful,  as  well  to  execute  faithfully  the  trust  reposed  in  me, 
us  to  avoid  even  the  appearance  of  invading  any  of  those  powers  which  the 

constitution 


220  •  LETTERS  OF 

suits;  their  complaints  not  merely  disregarded,  but  checked 
by  authority;  and  every  one  of  those  acts,  against  which  they 
remonstrated,  confirmed  by  the  King's  decisive  approbation. 
At  such  a  moment,  no  honest  man  will  remain  silent  or  inac- 

constitution  has  placed  in  other  hands.  It  is  only  by  persevering  in  such  a 
conduct,  that  I  can  eitherdischarge  my  own  duty,  or  secure  to  my  subjects 
the  free  enjoyment  of  those  rights  which  my  family  were  called  to  de- 
fend, and,  while  I  act  upon  these  principles,  I  shall  have  a  right  to  expect, 
and  I  am  confident  I  shall  continue  to  receive,  the  steady  and  affectionate 
support  of  my  people." 

There  was  at  the  same  time  a  declaration  against  the  remonstrance, 
drawn  up  and  subscribed  by  the  aldermen  on  the  ministerial  side,  and  the 
following  address  to  His  Majesty  was  jointly  presented  by  both  Houses  of 
Parliament. 

The  humble  Address  of  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lords  Spiritual  and 
Temporal,  and  Commons,  in  Parliament  assembled,  presented  to  His 
Majesty  on  Friday  the  23d  day  of  March,  1770. 

"  JMost  gracious  Sovereign, 

"We  your  Majesty's  most  dutiful  and  faithful  subjects,  the  Lords  Spi- 
ritual and  Temporal,  and  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  in  parliament  assem- 
bled, having  taken  into  consideration  the  address  lately  presented  to  your 
Majesty  under  the  title  of  •  The  humble  Address,  Remonstrance,  and 
Petition  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Livery  of  the  City  of  London, 
in  Common  Hall  assembled,'  together  with  the  answer  which  your  Ma- 
jesty was  pleased  to  make  to  the  same;  think  ourselves  indispensably 
obliged,  upon  this  occasion,  to  express  to  your  Majesty  the  extreme  con- 
cern and  indignation  which  we  feel  at  finding  that  an  application  has  been 
made  to  your  Majesty,  in  terms  so  little  corresponding  with  that  grateful 
and  affectionate  respect  which  your  Majesty  is  so  justly  intitled  to  from  all 
your  subjects,  at  the  same  time  aspersing  and  calumniating  one  of  the 
branches  of  the  legislature,  and  expressly  denying  the  legality  of  the  pre- 
sent parliament,  and  the  validity  of  its  proceedings. 

"  To  present  petitions  to  the  throne  has  at  all  times  been  the  undoubted 
right  of  the  subjects  of  this  realm.  The  free  enjoyment  of  that  right  was 
one  of  the  many  blessings  restored  by  the  revolution,  and  continued  to  us, 
in  its  fullest  extent,  under  the  princes  of  your  Majesty's  illustrious  house: 
And  as  we  are  duly  sensible  of  its  value  and  importance,  it  is  with  the 
deepest  concern  that  we  now  see  the  exercise  of  it  so  grossly  perverted, 
by  being  applied  to  the  purpose,  not  of  preserving,  but  of  overturning  the 
constitution,  and  of  propagating  doctrines,  which,  if  generally  adopted, 
must  be  fatal  to  the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  and  which  tend  to  the  subver- 
sion of  all  lawful  authority. 

"  Your  Majesty,  we  acknowledge  with  gratitude,  has  ever  shewn  the 
most  tender  regard  to  the  rights  of  your  people,  not  only  in  the  exercise 

of 


JUNIUS.  221 

tive.  However  distinguished  by  rank  or  property,  in  the  rights 
of  freedom  we  are  all  equal.  As  we  are  Englishmen,  the  least 
considerable  man  among  us  has  an  interest  equal  to  the 
proudest  nobleman,  in  the  laws  and  constitution  of  his  coun- 
try, and  is  equally  called  upon  to  make  a  generous  contribu- 
tion in  support  of  them; — whether  it  be  the  heart  to  conceive, 
the  understanding  to  direct,  or  the  hand  to  execute.  It  is  a 
common  cause,  in  which  we  are  all  interested,  in  which  we 
should  all  be  engaged.  The  man  who  deserts  it  at  this  alarm- 

of  your  own  power,  but  in  your  care  to  preserve  from  every  degree  of  in- 
fringement or  violation  the  powers  intrusted  to  others.  And  we  beg  leave 
to  return  your  Majesty  our  unfeigned  thanks  for  the  fresh  proof  you  have 
now  given  us,  of  your  determination  to  persevere  in  your  adherence  to  the 
principles  of  the  constitution. 

"  Permit  us  also  to  assure  your  Majesty,  that  it  is  with  the  highest 
satisfaction  we  see  your  Majesty  expressing  so  just  a  confidence  in  your 
people.  In  whatever  unjustifiable  excesses  some  few  misguided  persons 
may  in  this  instance  have  been  seduced  to  join,  your  Majesty's  subjects  in 
general  are  too  sensible  of  what  they  owe  both  to  your  Majesty  and  to 
your  illustrious  family,  ever  to  be  capable  of  approaching  your  Majesty 
with  any  other  sentiments  than  those  of  the  most  entire  respect  and  af- 
fection; and  they  understand  too  well  their  own  true  interests  to  wish  to 
loosen  the  bands  of  obedience  to  the  laws,  and  of  due  subordination  to 
lawful  authority.  We  are  therefore  fully  persuaded  that  your  Majesty's 
people,  as  well  as  your  parliament,  will  reject  with  disdain  every  insidious 
suggestion  of  those  ill-designing  men,  who  are  in  reality  undermining  the 
public  liberty,  under  the  specious  pretence  of  zeal  for  its  preservation; 
and  that  your  Majesty's  attention  to  maintain  the  liberties  of  your  subjects 
inviolated,  which  you  esteem  your  chief  glory,  will,  upon  every  occasion, 
prove  the  sure  means  of  strength  to  your  Majesty,  and  secure  to  you  that 
zealous  and  effectual  support,  which  none  but  a  free  people  can  bestow." 

His  Majesty's  Answer. 

"  My  lords  and  gentfemen,  I  return  you  many  thanks  for  this  very  loyal 
and  dutiful  address.  It  is  with  great  satisfaction  that  I  receive  from  my 
parliament  so  grateful  an  acknowledgment  of  my  tender  regard  for  the 
rights  of  my  subjects.  Be  assured  that  I  shall  continue  to  adhere  to  the 
true  principles  of  our  excellent  constitution;  from  which  I  cannot  deviate 
without  justly  forfeiting  the  affections  of  a  free  people." 

The  city  in  its  corporate  capacity,  however,  dissatisfied  with  His  Majes- 
ty's reply,  and  still  more  so  with  the  notice  which  had  been  taken  of  its 
remonstrance  in  parliament,  ventured  to  draw  np  and  present  another  ad- 
dress and  remonstrance,  which  was  done  on  the  ensuing  May  23,  and  ran 
as  follows: 

7  1 


222  LETTERS  OF 

ing  crisis,  is  an  enemy  to  his  country,  and,  what  I  think  of 
infinitely  less  importance,  a  traitor  to  his  Sovereign.  The 
subject,  who  is  truly  loyal  to  the  chief  magistrate,  will  neither 
advise  nor  submit  to  arbitrary  measures.  The  city  of  Lon- 

TO  THE  KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 

The  humble  Address,  Remonstrance,  and  Petition,  of  the  Lord  Mayor, 
Aldermen,  and  Commons  of  the  City  of  London,  in  Common  Council 
assembled. 

"  May  it  please  your  Majesty, 

"  When  your  Majesty's  most  faithful  subjects,  the  citizens  of  London, 
whose  loyalty  and  affection  has  been  so  often  and  so  effectually  proved  and 
experienced  by  the  illustrious  house  of  Brunswick,  are  labouring  under 
the  weight  of  that  displeasure,  which  your  Majesty  has  been  advised  to 
lay  upon  them,  in  the  answer  given  from  the  throne  to  their  late  humble 
application,  we  feel  ourselves  constrained  with  all  humility  to  approach  the 
royal  father  of  his  people. 

"  Conscious,  Sire,  of  the  purest  sentiments  of  veneration  which  they 
entertain  for  your  Majesty's  person,  we  are  deeply  concerned  that  what 
the  law  allows,  and  the  constitution  teaches,  hath  been  misconstrued  into 
disrespect  to  your  Majesty,  by  the  instruments  of  that  influence  which 
shakes  the  realm. 

"  Perplexed  and  astonished  as  we  are,  by  the  awful  sentence  of  cen- 
sure, lately  passed  upon  the  citizens  of  London,  in  your  Majesty's  answer 
from  the  throne,  we  cannot,  without  surrendering  all  that  is  dear  to  Eng- 
lishmen, forbear  most  humbly  to  supplicate,  that  your  Majesty  will  deign 
to  grant  a  more  favourable  interpretation  to  this  dutiful,  though  persever- 
ing claim  to  our  invaded  birth-rights;  nothing  doubting,  that  the  benig- 
nity  of  your  Majesty's  nature,  will  to  our  unspeakable  comfort,  at  length 
break  through  all  the  secret  and  visible  machinations,  to  which  the  city  of 
London  owes  its  late  severe  repufee,  and  that  your  kingly  justice,  and  fa- 
therly tenderness,  will  disclaim  the  malignant  and  pernicious  advice  which 
suggested  the  answer  we  deplore;  an  advice  of  most  dangerous  tendency, 
in  as  much,  as  thereby  the  exercise  of  the  clearest  rights  of  the  subject, 
namelv  to  petition  the  King  for  redress  of  grievances,  to  complain  of  the 
violation  of  the  freedom  of  election,  and  to  pray  dissolution  of  parliament, 
to  point  out  mal-practices  in  administration,  and  to  urge  the  removal  of 
evil  ministers,  hath,  by  the  generality  of  one  compendious  word,  been  in- 
discriminately checked  with  reprimand;  and  your  Majesty's  afflicted  citi- 
zens of  London,  have  heard  from  the  throne  itself,  that  the  contents  of 
their  humble  address,  remonstrance,  and  petition,  laying  their  complaints 
and  injuries  at  the  feet  of  their  Sovereign,  cannot  but  be  considered  by 
four  Majesty,  as  disrespectful  to  yourself,  injurious  to  your  parliament, 
:itulirreconcileableto  the  principles  of  the  constitution. 

"  Your  Majesty  cannot  disapprove  that  we  here  assert  the  clearest  prin- 
iples  of  the  constitution,  against  the  insidious  attempt  of  evil  counsellors, 

to 


JUNIUS.  223 

don  have  given  an  example,  which,  I  doubt  not,  will  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  whole  kingdom.  The  noble  spirit  of  the  me- 
tropolis is  the  life-blood  of  the  state,  collected  at  the  heart: 
from  that  point  it  circulates,  with  health  and  vigour,  through 

to  perplex,  confound,  and  shake  them.  We  are  determined  to  abide  by 
those  rights  and  liberties,  which  our  forefathers  bravely  vindicated  at  the 
ever  memorable  revolution,  and  which  their  sons  will  always  resolutely 
defend:  We  therefore  now  renew,  at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  our  claim  to 
the  indispensable  right  of  the  subject,  a  full,  free,  and  unmutilated  par- 
liament, legally  chosen  in  all  its  members:  A  right,  which  this  House  of 
Commons  have  manifestly  violated,  depriving,  at  their  will  and  pleasure, 
the  county  of  Middlesex  of  one  of  its  legal  representatives,  and  arbitrarily 
nominating,  as  a  knight  of  the  shire,  a  person  not  elected  by  a  majority  of 
the  freeholders.  As  the  only  constitutional  means  of  reparation  now  left 
for  the  injured  electors  of  Great  Britain,  we  implore,  with  most  urgent 
supplication,  the  dissolution  of  this  present  parliament,  the  removal  of  evil 
ministers,  and  the  total  extinction  of  that  fatal  influence  which  has  caused 
such  a  national  discontent.  In  the  mean  time,  Sire,  we  offer  our  constant 
prayers  to  heaven,  that  your  Majesty  may  reign,  as  kings  can  only  reign, 
in  and  by  the  hearts  of  a  loyal,  dutiful,  and  free  people." 

His  Majesty's  Answer,  delivered  the  23d  May,  1770. 

"  I  should  have  been  wanting  to  the  public,  as  well  as  to  myself,  if  I  had. 
not  expressed  my  dissatisfaction  at  the  late  address. 

"  My  sentiments  on  that  subject  continue  the  same,  and  I  should  ill  de- 
serve to  be  considered  as  the  Father  of  my  people,  if  I  should  suffer  my  - 
self  to  be  prevailed  upon  to  make  such  an  use  of  my  prerogative,  as  I  can- 
not but  think  inconsistent  with  the  interest,  and  dangerous  to  the  consti- 
tution of  the  kingdom." 

The  Lord  Mayor  then  addressed  His  Majesty  in  the  following  words: 
"  Most  gracious  Sovereign, 

"  Will  your  Majesty  be  pleased  so  far  to  condescend  as  to  permit  tht. 
Mayor  of  your  loyal  city  of  London,  to  declare  in  your  royal  presence,  on 
behalf  of  his  fellow  citizens,  how  much  the  bare  apprehension  of  your  Ma- 
jesty's displeasure  would  at  all  times  affect  their  minds.  The  declaration 
of  that  displeasure,  has  already  filled  them  with  inexpressible  anxiety  and 
with  the  deepest  affliction.  Permit  me,  Sire,  to  assure  your  Majesty,  that 
your  Majesty  has  not  in  all  your  dominions  any  subjects  more  faithful, 
more  dutiful,  or  more  affectionate  to  your  Majesty's  person  and  family,  or 
more  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives  and  fortunes  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
true  honour  and  dignity  of  your  crown. 

"  We  do,  therefore,  with  the  greatest  humility  and  submission,  most 
earnestly  supplicate  your  Majesty,  that  you  will  not  dismiss  us  from  your 
presence,  without  expressing  a  more  favourable  opinion  of  your  faithful 

citizens, 


224>  LETTERS  OF 

every  artery  of  the  constitution.  The  time  is  come,  when  the 
body  of  the  English  people  must  assert  their  own  cause: 
conscious  of  their  strength,  and  animated  by  a  sense  of  their 
duty,  they  will  not  surrender  their  birthright  to  ministers, 
parliaments,  or  kings. 

The  city  of  London  have  expressed  their  sentiments  with 
freedom  and  firmness;  they  have  spoken  truth  boldly;  and, 
in  whatever  light  their  remonstrance  may  be  represented  by 
courtiers,  I  defy  the  most  subtle  lawyer  in  this  country  to 
point  out  a  single  instance,  in  which  they  have  exceeded  the 
truth.  Even  that  assertion,  which  we  are  told  is  most  offen- 
sive to  parliament,  in  the  theory  of  the  English  constitution, 
is  stricdy  true.  If  any  part  of  the  representative  body  be  not 
chosen  by  the  people,  that  part  vitiates  and  corrupts  the 
whole.  If  there  be  a  defect  in  the  representation  of  the  peo>- 
pie,  that  power,  which  alone  is  equal  to  the  making  of  laws 
in  this  country,  is  not  complete,  and  the  acts  of  parliament 
under  that  circumstance,  are  not  the  acts  of  a  pure  and  en- 
tire legislature.  I  speak  of  the  theory  of  our  constitution; 
and  whatever  difficulties  or  inconveniences  may  attend  the 
practice,  I  am  ready  to  maintain,  that,  as  far  as  the  fact  de- 
viates from  the  principle,  so  far  the  practice  is  vicious  and 
corrupt.  I  have  not  heard  a  question  raised  upon  any  other 
part  of  the  remonstrance.  That  the  principle,  on  which  the 
Middlesex  election  was  determined,  is  more  pernicious  in 
its  effects,  than  either  the  levying  of  ship-money,  by  Charles 
the  first,  or  the  suspending  power  assumed  by  his  son,  will 
hardly  be  disputed  by  any  man  who  understands  or  wishes 

citizens,  and  without  some  comfort,  without  some  prospect  at  least  of 
re  dress. 

"  Permit  me,  Sire,  farther  to  observe,  that  whoever  has  already  dared, 
or  shall  hereafter  endeavour  by  false  insinuations  and  suggestions,  to  alien- 
ate your  Majesty's  affections  from  your  loyal  subjects  in  general,  and  from 
the  city  of  London  in  particular,  and  to  withdraw  your  confidence  in  and 
regard  for  your  people,  is  an  enemy  to  your  Majesty's  person  and  family, 
i  violator  of  the  public  peace,  and  a  betrayer  of  our  happy  constitution,  as 
it  was  established  at  the  glorious  revolution." 

Mr.  Beckford  was  at  this  time  Lord  Mayor,  and  it  is  this  reply  which 
rlie  corporation  has  had  engraven  beneath  the  statue  erected  to  his  memory 
at  the  west  end  of  Guildhall.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  225 

Weil  to  the  English  constitution.  It  is  not  an  act  of  open 
violence  done  by  the  King,  or  any  direct  and  palpable  breach 
of  the  laws  attempted  by  his  minister,  that  can  ever  endan- 
ger the  liberties  of  this  country*  Against  such  a  King  or 
minister  the  people  would  immediately  take  the  alarm,  and 
all  parties  unite  to  oppose  him.  The  laws  may  be  grossly 
violated  in  particular  instances,  without  any  direct  attack 
upon  the  whole  system.  Facts  of  that  kind  stand  alone;  they 
are  attributed  to  necessity,  not  defended  upon  principle. 
We  can  never  be  really  in  danger,  until  the  forms  of  parlia- 
ment are  made  use  of  to  destroy  the  substance  of  our  civil 
and  political  liberties; — until  parliament  itself  betrays  its 
trust,  by  contributing  to  establish  new  principles  of  govern- 
ment, and  employing  the  very  weapons  committed  to  it  by 
the  collective  body,  to  stab  the  constitution. 

As  for  the  terms  of  the  remonstrance,  I  presume  it  will 
not  be  affirmed,  by  any  person  less  polished  than  a  gentle- 
man usher,  that  this  is  a  season  for  compliments.  Our  gra- 
cious King  indeed  is  abundantly  civil  to  himself.  Instead  of 
an  answer  to  a  petition,  his  majesty,  very  gracefully  pro- 
nounces his  own  panegyric;  and  I  confess,  that,  as  far  as  his 
personal  behaviour,  or  the  royal  purity  of  his  intentions  is 
concerned,  the  truth  of  those  declarations,  which  the  minis- 
ter has  drawn  up  for  his  master,  cannot  decently  be  disputed. 
In  every  other  respect,  I  affirm,  that  they  are  absolutely  un- 
supported, either  in  argument  or  fact.  I  must  add  too,  that 
supposing  the  speech  were  otherwise  unexceptionable,  it  is 
not  a  direct  answer  to  the  petition  of  the  city.  His  Majesty 
is  pleased  to  say,  that  he  is  always  ready  to  receive  the  re- 
quests of  his  subjects;  yet  the  sheriffs  were  twice  sent  back 
with  an  excuse,  and  it  was  certainly  debated  in  council 
whether  or  no  the  magistrates  of  the  city  of  London  should 
be  admitted  to  an  audience.  Whether  the  remonstrance  be 
or  be  not  injurious  to  parliament,  is  the  very  question  be- 
tween the  parliament  and  the  people,  and  such  a  question  as 
cannot  be  decided  by  the  assertion  of  a  third  party,  however 
respectable.  That  the  petitioning  for  a  dissolution  of  parlia- 
ment is  irreconciieable  with  the  principles  of  the  constitution 
is  a  new  doctrine.  His  Majestv  perhaps  has  not  been  in- 

Vol.  I.  'IF 


226  LETTERS  OF 

formed,  that  the  House  of  Commons  themselves  have,  by  a 
formal  resolution,  admitted  it  to  be  the  right  of  the  subject. 
His  Majesty  proceeds  to  assure  us  that  he  has  made  the  laws 
the  rule  of  his  conduct. — Was  it  in  ordering  or  permitting 
his  ministers  to  apprehend  Mr.  Wilkes  by  a  general  war- 
rant?— Was  it  in  suffering  his  ministers  to  revive  the  obso- 
lete maxim  of  nullum  tempus  to  rob  the  Duke  of  Portland  of 
his  property,  and  thereby  give  a  decisive  turn  to  a  county 
election*?  Was  it  in  erecting  a  chamber  consultation  of  sur- 
geons, with  authority  to  examine  into  and  supersede  the 
legal  verdict  of  a  juryf?  Or  did  his  Majesty  consult  the  laws 
of  this  country,  when  he  permitted  his  secretary  of  state  to 
declare,  that  whenever  the  civil  magistrate  is  trifled  with,  a 
military  force  must  be  sent  for,  -without  the  delay  of  a  moment, 
and  effectually  employed^?  Or  was  it  in  the  barbarous  ex- 
actness with  which  this  illegal,  inhuman  doctrine  was  carried 
into  execution? — If  his  Majesty  had  recollected  these  facts, 

*  See  Junius,  Letters  lvii.  and  lxvii.  and  notes.  Edit. 

f  See  note  in  p.  70,  of  this  Vol.  Edit. 

i  Previous  to  the  riot  which  took  place  May  10,  1768,  as  noticed  in 
Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  xxiv.  the  following  letter  was  issued  by  Lord 
Barrington,  to  which  Mr.  Wilkes  wrote  an  introduction,  as  noticed  in 
Letter  xi.  p.  83,  of  this  Vol.  an  act  which  formed  a  part  of  the  offence  for 
•which  that  gentleman  was  expelled  the  House  of  Commons.  Curious  as 
this  letter  is,  it  has  not  been  preserved  even  in  the  Annual  Register. 

Copy. 
Sir,  St.  James's,  April  17,  1768. 

Having  already  signified  the  King's  pleasure  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  the  County  in  which  you  reside,  with  regard  to  the  measures  to  be 
taken  in  general  for  preserving  the  peace,  at  a  time  that  so  very  riotous  a 
disposition  has  discovered  itself  among  the  common  people,  I  make  no 
doubt  but  that  either  some  steps  have,  or  will  immediately  be  taken  by 
him  on  that  head;  and,  I  take  it  for  granted,  that  as  chairman  of  the  Ses- 
sions, you  will  meet  the  gentlemen,  who  act  in  the  commission  of  the 
peace  for  the  Borough  of  Southwark  and  East  Hundred  of  Brixton,  to 
consult  together,  and  fix  upon  some  plan  for  securing  the  public  tranquil- 
lity against  any  mischiefs  which  may  happen,  should  the  same  indecent 
spirit  of  tumult  and  disorder  which  has  appeared  in  the  city  and  liberties 
of  Westminster,  spread  itself  to  those  parts  which  are  within  the  line  of 
your  duty,  and  though  I  am  persuaded  it  is  unnecessary  to  suggest  to  you, 
or  the  gentlemen  who  will  meet  you,  any  part  of  your  duty  on  such  an 
occasion,  yet,  after  the  recent  alarming  instances  of  riot  and  confusion, 
I  can't  help  apprizing  you,  that  much  will  depend  upon  the  preventive 
measures  which  you  shall,  in  conjunction  with  the  other  gentlemen  in 

thr 


JUNIUS.  227 

I  think  he  would  never  have  said,  at  least  with  any  reference 
to  the  measures  of  his  government,  that  he  had  made  the 
laws  the  rule  of  his  conduct.  To  talk  of  preserving  the  affec- 
tions, or  relying  on  the  support  of  his  subjects,  while  he 
continues  to  act  upon  these  principles,  is  indeed  paying  a 
compliment  to  their  loyalty,  which  I  hope  they  have  too 
much  spirit  and  understanding  to  deserve. 

His  Majesty,  we  are  told,  is  not  only  punctual  in  the  per- 
formance of  his  own  duty,  but  careful  not  to  assume  any  of 
those  powers  which  the  constitution  has  placed  in  other 
hands.  Admitting  this  last  assertion  to  be  strictly  true,  it  is 
no  way  to  the  purpose.  The  city  of  London  have  not  desired 
the  King  to  assume  a  power  placed  in  other  hands.  If  they 
had,  I  should  hope  to  see  the  person  who  dared  to  present 
such  a  petition  immediately  impeached*.  They  solicit  their 

the  commission  of  the  peace,  take,  upon  your  meeting,  and  much  is  ex- 
pected from  the  vigilance  and  activity  with  which  such  measures  will  be 
carried  into  execution.  When  I  inform  you,  that  every  possible  precaution 
is  taken  to  support  the  dignity  of  your  office;  that  upon  application  from 
the  civil  magistrate  at  the  Tower,  the  Savoy,  or  the  War  Office,  he  will 
find  a  military  force  ready  to  march  to  his  assistance,  and  to  act  accord- 
ing as  he  shall  find  it  expedient  and  necessary;  I  need  not  add,  that  if  the 
public  peace  is  not  preserved,  and  if  any  riotous  proceedings,  which  may 
happen,  are  not  suppressed,  the  blame  will,  most  probably,  be  imputed  to 
a  want  of  prudent  and  spirited  conduct  in  the  civil  magistrate.  As  I  have 
no  reason  to  doubt  your  caution  and  discretion  in  not  calling  for  troops 
till  they  are  wanted;  so,  on  the  other  hand,  I  hope  you  will  not  delay  a 
moment  calling  for  their  aid,  and  making  use  of  them  effectually  where 
there  is  occasion;  that  occasion  always  presents  itself,  when  the  civil 
power  is  trifled  with  and  insulted,  nor  can  a  military  force  ever  be  em- 
ployed to  a  more  constitutional  purpose,  than  in  support  of  the  authority 
and  dignity  of  magistracy.  Barrington. 

P.  S.  I  have,  for  the  greater  caution,  sent  copies  of  this  letter  to  the 
members  for  the  Borough,  and  Mr.  Pownall.  If  you  should  have  received 
no  directions  from  Lord  Onslow  for  a  meeting,  you  will  consider  this  a* 
sufficient  authority  for  that  purpose. 

Daniel  Ponton,  Esq.  Chairman  of  the 

Quarter  Sessions,  Lambeth.  Edit. 

*  "  When  his  Majesty  had  done  reading  his  speech,  the  Lord  Mayor, 
2tc.  had  the  honour  of  kissing  his  Majesty's  hand;  after  which,  as  they 
were  withdrawing,  his  Majesty  instantly  turned  round  to  his  courtiere, 
and  burst  out  a  laughing. 

"  Nerojiddled,  whilst  Rome  v>at  burning."  John  Horse.        Author. 

Mr 


228  '   LETTERS  OF 

Sovereign  to  exert  that  constitutional  authority,  which  the 
laws  have  vested  in  him,  for  the  benefit  of  his  subjects.  They 
call  upon  him  to  make  use  of  his  lawful  prerogative  in  a  case, 
which  our  laws  evidently  supposed  might  happen,  since  they 
have  provided  for  it  by  trusting  the  Sovereign  with  a  discre- 
tionary power  to  dissolve  the  parliament.  This  request  will, 
I  am  confident,  be  supported  by  remonstrances  from  all  parts 
of  the  kingdom.  His  Majesty  will  find  at  last,  that  this  is  the 
sense  of  his  people,  and  that  it  is  not  his  interest  to  support 
either  ministry  or  parliament,  at  the  hazard  of  a  breach  with 
the  collective  bod}''  of  his  subjects. — That  he  is  the  King  of 
a  free  people,  is  indeed  his  greatest  glory.  That  he  may  long 
continue  the  King  of  a  free  people,  is  the  second  wish  that 
animates  my  heart.  The  first  is,  that  the  people  may  be 
tree*.  JUNIUS. 

Mr.  Home  having-  furnished  the  printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser  with 
a  detail  of  the  proceedings  on  presenting  the  remonstrance  on  the  14th  of 
March,  concluded  it  with  the  whole  of  the  words  quoted  by  Junius  as 
the  foregoing*  note,  for  which  a  prosecution  was  commenced  against  the 
Printer,  but  which  was  not  persevered  in. 

Mr.  Home  also  sent  to  the  Printer  the  particulars  which  occurred  on 
presenting  the  Remonstrance  of  the  14th  of  May  at  St.  James's,  to  which 
he  added  as' follows: — 

N.  B.  The  writer  of  the  above  account  having  given  great  offence  to 
some  persons  by  inserting  in  a  former  paper,  that — Nero  fiddled  -whilst 
Home  -mas  burning — and  an  Information  having  been  filed  by  the  Attorney 
General  against  the  Printer  in  consequence,  takes  this  opportunity  to  de- 
clare, that  it  was  not  his  intention  to  falsify  an  historical  fact,  or  to  give 
offence  to  better  memories;  he  hopes  therefore  it  will  be  admitted  as  a 
recompence,  if  he  now  declares  that  Nero  did  not  fiddle  whilst  Rome  was 
burning.  Edit. 

*  As  the  Letters  of  Junius  have  been  by  some  attributed  to  Mr.  Dun- 
ning, and  as  the  beginning  of  the  third  paragraph  of  that  gentleman's 
answer  to  the  Chamberlain  of  London,  on  being  presented  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  city,  has  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  structure  and  senti- 
ments with  which  this  letter  concludes,  the  reader  will  excuse  its  insertion 
in  this  place,  though  it  has  no  reference  to  the  subject  of  the  letter  itself. 
"  Mr.  Chamberlain, 

"  I  am  to  request  the  favour  of  you  to  represent  me  to  the  Lord  Mayor, 
Aldermen,  and  Commons  of  London,  as  duly  sensible  of  the  great,  but,  I 
must  add,  unmerited  honour  they  have  done  me;  for  surely,  Sir,  there  is 
little  merit  in  acting  on  one's  own  opinions,  and  I  cannot,  with  a  safe  con- 
science, pretend  to  any  other. 

"  Convinced 


JUNIUS.  5229 


LETTER  XXXVIII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  3  April,  1770. 

In  my  last  letter  I  offered  you  my  opinion  of  the  truth  and 
propriety  of  his  Majesty's  answer  to  the  city  of  London, 
considering  it  merely  as  the  speech  of  a  minister,  drawn  up 
in  his  own  defence,  and  delivered,  as  usual,  by  the  chief 
magistrate.  I  would  separate  as  much  as  possible,  the  King's 
personal  character  and  behaviour  from  the  acts  of  the  present 
government.  I  wish  it  to  be  understood  that  his  Majesty 
had  in  effect  no  more  concern  in  the  substance  of  what  he 
said,  than  Sir  James  Hodges*  had  in  the  remonstrance,  and 
that  as  Sir  James,  in  virtue  of  his  office,  was  obliged  to  speak 
the  sentiments  of  the  people,  his  Majesty  might  think  him- 
self bound,  by  the  same  official  obligation,  to  give  a  graceful 
utterance  to  the  sentiments  of  his  minister.  The  cold  for- 
mality of  a  well  repeated  lesson  is  widely  distant  from  the 
animated  expression  of  the  heart. 

This  distinction,  however,  is  only  true  with  respect  to  the 

"  Convinced  as  I  am,  that  our  happy  constitution  has  given  us  the  most 
perfect  system  of  government  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  that  it  is 
therefore  our  common  interest  and  duty  to  oppose  every  practice,  and 
combat  every  principle  that  tends  to  impair  it:  Any  other  conduct  than 
that  which  the  City  of  London  has  been  pleased  to  distinguish  by  its  ap- 
probation, must  in  my  own  judgment  have  rendered  me  equally  unworthy 
of  the  office  I  had  then  the  honour  to  hold  through  his  Majesty's  favour, 
and  of  the  trust  reposed  in  me  as  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  people. 

"  To  discharge  faithfully  the  duties  of  whatever  situation  ive  are placedin  is 
among  the  first  objects  of  honest  ambition.  To  be  thought  to  have  done  so,  I  con- 
sider as  a  second.  Consequently  I  cannot  but  feel  a  high  degree  of  satisfac- 
tion in  this  testimony  of  the  good  opinion  of  so  respectable  a  body  as  the 
citizens  of  London;  and  it  is  no  inconsiderable  addition  to  that  satisfaction, 
that  it  gives  me  a  nearer  relation  to  men  who  have  been  usually  among* 
the  foremost  to  assert  and  maintain  those  legal  and  constitutional  rights 
which  are  essential  to  the  general  interests  of  the  community. 

"  I  have  nothing  to  add,  Sir,  but  my  acknowledgements  to  you  for  the 
obliging  expressions  you  have  used  in  executing  your  commission. 

March  27,  1771.  J.  DUNNING."    Edit. 

•  Town  Clerk  to  the  city  of  London,  who  signed  for  the  corporation  the 
city  petition  and  remonstrance.     Edit- 


230  LETTERS  OF 

measure  itself.  The  consequences  of  it  reach  beyond  the 
minister,  and  materially  affect  his  Majesty's  honour.  In  their 
own  nature  they  are  formidable  enough  to  alarm  a  man  of 
prudence,  and  disgraceful  enough  to  afflict  a  man  of  spirit. 
A  subject,  whose  sincere  attachment  to  his  Majesty's  per- 
son and  family  is  founded  upon  rational  principles,  will  not, 
in  the  present  conjuncture,  be  scrupulous  of  alarming,  or 
even  of  afflicting  his  Sovereign.  I  know  there  is  another  sort 
of  loyalty,  of  which  his  Majesty  has  had  plentiful  experience. 
When  the  loyalty  of  Tories,  Jacobites,  and  Scotchmen,  has 
once  taken  possession  of  an  unhappy  Prince,  it  seldom  leaves 
him  without  accomplishing  his  destruction.  When  the  poi- 
son of  their  doctrines  has  tainted  the  natural  benevolence  of 
his  disposition,  when  their  insidious  counsels  have  corrupted 
the  stamina  of  his  government,  what  antidote  can  restore  him 
to  his  political  health  and  honour,  but  the  firm  sincerity  of 
his  English  subjects? 

It  has  not  been  usual  in  this  country,  at  least  since  the  days 
of  Charles  the  first,  to  see  the  Sovereign  personally  at  vari- 
ance, or  engaged  in  a  direct  altercation  with  his  subjects. 
Acts  of  grace  and  indulgence  are  wisely  appropriated  to  him, 
and  should  constantly  be  performed  by  himself.  He  never 
should  appear  but  in  an  amiable  light  to  his  subjects.  Even 
in  France,  as  long  as  any  ideas  of  a  limited  monarchy 
were  thought  worth  preserving,  it  was  a  maxim,  that  no  man 
should  leave  the  royal  presence  discontented.  They  have  lost 
or  renounced  the  moderate  principles  of  their  government, 
and  now,  when  their  parliaments  venture  to  remonstrate,  the 
tyrant  comes  forward,  and  answers  absolutely  for  himself. 
The  spirit  of  their  present  constitution  requires  that  the  King 
should  be  feared,  and  the  principle,  I  believe,  is  tolerably  sup- 
ported by  the  fact.  But,  in  our  political  system,  the  theory 
is  at  variance  with  the  practice,  for  the  King  should  be 
beloved.  Measures  of  greater  severity  may,  indeed,  in  some 
circumstances,  be  necessary;  but  the  minister  who  advises, 
should  take  the  execution  and  odium  of  them  entirely  upon 
himself.  He  not  only  betrays  his  master,  but  violates  the 
spirit  of  the  English  constitution,  when  he  exposes  the  chief 
magistrate  to  the  personal  hatred  or  contempt  of  his  subjects. 


JUNIUS.  231 

When  we  speak  of  the  firmness  of  government,  we  mean  an 
uniform  system  of  measures,  deliberately  adopted,  and  reso- 
lutely maintained  by  the  servants  of  the  crown,  not  a  peevish 
asperity  in  the  language  or  behaviour  of  the  Sovereign.  The 
government  of  a  weak,  irresolute  monarch  may  be  wise, 
moderate,  and  firm; — that  of  an  obstinate,  capricious  prince, 
on  the  contrary,  may  be  feeble,  undetermined  and  relaxed. 
The  reputation  of  public  measures  depends  upon  the  minis- 
ter, who  is  responsible,  not  upon  the  King,  whose  private 
opinions  are  not  supposed  to  have  any  weight  against  the 
advice  of  his  counsel,  whose  personal  authority  should  there- 
fore never  be  interposed  in  public  affairs. — This,  I  believe, 
is  true,  constitutional  doctrine.  But,  for  a  moment,  let  us 
suppose  it  false.  Let  it  be  taken  for  granted,  that  an  occasion 
may  arise,  in  which  a  King  of  England  shall  be  compelled  to 
take  upon  himself  the  ungrateful  office  of  rejecting  the  peti- 
tions, and  censuring  the  conduct  of  his  subjects;  and  let  the 
City  remonstrance  be  supposed  to  have  created  so  extraor- 
dinary an  occasion.  On  this  principle,  which  I  presume  no 
friend  of  administration  will  dispute,  let  the  wisdom  and 
spirit  of  the  ministry  be  examined.  They  advise  the  King  to 
hazard  his  dignity,  by  a  positive  declaration  of  his  own  sen- 
timents;— they  suggest  to  him  a  language  full  of  severity 
and  reproach.  What  follows?  When  his  Majesty  had  taken 
so  decisive  a  part  in  support  of  his  ministry  and  parliament, 
he  had  a  right  to  expect  from  them  a  reciprocal  demonstration 
of  firmness  in  their  own  cause,  and  of  zeal  for  his  honour. 
He  had  reason  to  expect  (and  such,  I  doubt  not,  were  the 
blustering  promises  of  Lord  North)  that  the  persons,  whom 
he  had  been  advised  to  charge  with  having  failed  in  their 
respect  to  him,  with  having  injured  parliament,  and  vio- 
lated the  principles  of  the  constitution,  should  not  have 
been  permitted  to  escape  without  some  severe  marks  of 
the  displeasure  and  vengeance  of  parliament.  As  the  mat- 
ter stands,  the  minister,  after  placinghis  Sovereign  in  the  most 
unfavourable  light  to  his  subjects,  and  after  attempting  to 
fix  the  ridicule  and  odium  of  his  own  precipitate  measures 
upon  the  royal  character,  leaves  him  a  solitary  figure  upon 
the  scene,  to  recall,  if  he  can,  or  to  compensate,  by  futurr 


232  LETTERS  OF 

compliances,  for  one  unhappy  demonstration  of  ill-supported 
firmness,  and  ineffectual  resentment.  As  a  man  of  spirit,  his 
Majesty  cannot  but  be  sensible,  that  the  lofty  terms  in  which 
he  was  persuaded  to  reprimand  the  city,  when  united  with 
the  silly  conclusion  of  the  business,  resemble  the  pomp  of  a 
mock-tragedy,  where  the  most  pathetic  sentiments,  and  even 
the  sufferings  of  the  hero  are  calculated  for  derision. 

Such  has  been  the  boasted  firmness  and  consistency  of  a 
minister*,  whose  appearance  in  the  House  of  Commons  was 
thought  essential  to  the  King's  service;— whose  presence  was 
to  influence  every  division: — who  had  a  voice  to  persuade, 
an  eye  to  penetrate,  a  gesture  to  command.  The  reputation 
of  these  great  qualities  has  been  fatal  to  his  friends.  The 
little  dignity  of  Mr.  Ellis  has  been  committed.  The  mine 
was  sunk; — combustibles  provided,  and  Welbore  Ellis,  the 
Guy  Faux  of  the  fable,  waited  only  for  the  signal  of  com- 
mand. All  of  a  sudden  the  country  gentlemen  discover  how 
grossly  they  have  been  deceived; — the  minister's  heart  fails 
him,  the  grand  plot  is  defeated  in  a  moment,  and  poor  Mr. 
Ellis  and  his  motion  taken  into  custody.  From  the  event  of 
Friday  lastf,  one  would  imagine,  that  some  fatality  hung 
over  this  gentleman.  Whether  he  makes  or  suppresses  a 
motion,  he  is  equally  sure  of  his  disgrace.  But  the  com- 
plexion of  the  times  will  suffer  no  man  to  be  vice-treasurer  of 
Ireland  with  impunity:*.. 

*  Lord  North.  This  graceful  minister  is  oddly  constructed.  His 
tongue  is  a  little  too  big  for  his  mouth,  and  his  eyes  a  great  deal  too  big 
for  their  sockets.  Every  part  of  his  person  sets  natural  proportion  at  defi- 
ance. At  this  present  writing,  his  head  is  supposed  to  be  much  too  heavy 
for  his  shoulders. 

\  It  was  at  first  intended  by  the  cabinet  that  the  house  should  be  re- 
quested to  unite  with  his  Majesty  in  punishing  the  lord  mayor  and  sheriffs 
for  the  insult  offered  to  the  Sovereign  by  their  petition  and  remonstrance; 
and  a  vote  to  this  effect  was  to  have  been  moved  by  Mr.  Ellis,  afterwards 
Lord  Mendip,  and  in  the  author's  own  note  called  Mannikin,  on  account  of 
his  diminutive  stature;  subsequently  determined  to  have  recourse  to  less 
violent  measures;  and  the  conduct  of  the  metropolitan  corporation  was  in 
consequence,  merely  censured  by  a  vote  of  the  house,  and  the  preceding 
address  to  his  Majesty  from  both  houses,  apprising  him  of  such  censure: 
a,  measure  which  was  followed  by  another  address  from  the  city,  as  no- 
ticed in  note  to  p.  221,  of  this  volume.  Edit. 

J  About  this  time  the  courtiers  talked  of  nothing  but  a  bill  of  pains  and 

penalties 


JUNIUS.  233 

I  do  not  mean  to  express  the  smallest  anxiety  for  the 
minister's  reputation.  He  acts  separately  for  himself,  and 
the  most  shameful  inconsistency  may  perhaps  be  no  disgrace 
to  him.  But  when  the  Sovereign,  who  represents  the  majes- 
ty of  the  state,  appears  in  person,  his  dignity  should  be  sup- 
ported. The  occasion  should  be  important; — the  plan  well 
considered; — the  execution  steady  and  consistent.  My  zeal 
for  his  Majesty's  real  honour  compels  me  to  assert,  that  it 
has  been  too  much  the  system  of  the  present  reign,  to  intro- 
duce him  personally,  either  to  act  for,  or  to  defend  his  ser- 
vants. They  persuade  him  to  do  what  is  properly  their  busi- 
ness, and  desert  him  in  the  midst  of  it*.  Yet  this  is  an 
inconvenience,  to  which  he  must  for  ever  be  exposed,  while 
he  adheres  to  a  ministry  divided  among  themselves,  or  un- 
equal in  credit  and  ability  to  the  great  task  they  have  under- 
taken. Instead  of  reserving  the  interposition  of  the  royal 
personage,  as  the  last  resource  of  government,  their  weak- 
ness obliges  them  to  apply  it  to  every  ordinary  occasion,  and 
to  render  it  cheap  and  common  in  the  opinion  of  the  people. 
Instead  of  supporting  their  master,  they  look  to  him  for  sup- 
port; and  for  the  emolument  of  remaining  one  day  more  in 
office,  care  not  how  much  his  sacred  character  is  prostituted 
and  dishonoured. 

If  I  thought  it  possible  for  this  paper  to  reach  the  closet, 

penalties  against  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Sheriffs,  or  impeachment  at  the 
least.  Little  Mannikin  Ellis  told  the  King  that,  if  the  business  were  left 
to  his  management,  he  would  engage  to  do  wonders.  It  was  thought  very- 
odd  that  a  motion  of  so  much  importance  should  be  entrusted  to  the 
most  contemptible  little  piece  of  machinery  in  the  whole  kingdom.  His 
honest  zeal  however  was  disappointed.  The  minister  took  fright,  and  at 
the  very  instant  that  little  Ellis  was  going  to  open,  sent  him  an  order  to 
sit  down.  All  their  magnanimous  threats  ended  in  a  ridiculous  vote  of  cen- 
sure, and  a  still  more  ridiculous  address  to  the  King.  This  shameful  deser- 
tion so  afflicted  the  generous  mind  of  George  the  third,  that  he  was  obliged 
to  live  upon  potatoes  for  three  weeks,  to  keep  off  a  malignant  fever. — Poor 
man! — quis  taliafando  temperet  a  lacrymis!  Author. 

See  Private  Letter,  No.  33.   Edit. 

*  After  a  certain  person  had  succeeded  in  cajoling  Mr.  Yorke,  he  told 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  with  a  witty  smile,  "  My  Lord,  you  may  kill  the 
next  Percy  yourself." — N.  B.  He  had  but  that  instant  wiped  the  tear* 
away,  which  overcame  Mr.  Yorke. 

Vol.  I.  2  G 


234  LETTERS  OF 

I  would  venture  to  appeal  at  once  to  his  Majesty's  judgment* 
I  would  ask  him,  but  in  the  most  respectful  terms,  u  As  you 
are  a  young  man,  Sir,  who  ought  to  have  a  life  of  happiness 
In  prospect, — as  you  are  a  husband, — as  you  are  a  father, 
[your  filial  duties  I  own  have  been  religiously  performed]  is 
it  bona  fide  for  your  interest  or  your  honour  to  sacrifice  your 
domestic  tranquillity,  and  to  live  in  a  perpetual  disagreement 
with  your  people,  merely  to  preserve  such  a  chain  of  beings 
as  North,  Barrington,  Weymouth,  Gower,  Ellis,  Onslow, 
Rigby,  Jerry  Dyson,  and  Sandwich?  Their  very  names  are 
a  satire  upon  all  government,  and  I  defy  the  gravest  of  your 
chaplains  to  read  the  catalogue  without  laughing." 

For  my  own  part,  Sir,  I  have  always  considered  addresses 
from  parliament  as  a  fashionable,  unmeaning  formality. 
Usurpers,  idiots,  and  tyrants  have  been  successively  com- 
plimented with  almost  the  same  professions  of  duty  and 
affection.  But  let  us  suppose  them  to  mean  exactly  what 
they  profess.  The  consequences  deserve  to  be  considered. 
Either  the  Sovereign  is  a  man  of  high  spirit  and  dangerous 
ambition,  ready  to  take  advantage  of  the  treachery  of  his 
parliament,  ready  to  accept  of  the  surrender  they  make  him 
of  the  public  liberty; — or  he  is  a  mild,  undesigning  prince, 
who,  provided  they  indulge  him  with  a  little  state  and  pa- 
geantry, would  of  himself  intend  no  mischief.  On  the  first 
supposition,  it  must  soon  be  decided  by  the  sword,  whether 
the  constitution  should  be  lost  or  preserved.  On  the  second, 
a  prince  no  way  qualified  for  the  execution  of  a  great  and 
hazardous  enterprize,  and  without  any  determined  object  in 
view,  may  nevertheless  be  driven  into  such  desperate  mea- 
sures, as  may  lead  directly  to  his  ruin,  or  disgrace  himself 
by  a  shameful  fluctuation  between  the  extremes  of  violence 
at  one  moment,  and  timidity  at  another.  The  minister  per- 
haps may  have  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  the  success  of  the 
present  hour,  and  with  the  profits  of  his  employment.  He  is 
the  tenant  of  the  day,  and  has  no  interest  in  the  inheritance. 
The  Sovereign  himself  is  bound  by  other  obligations,  and 
ought  to  look  forward  to  a  superior,  a  permanent  interest. 
His  paternal  tenderness  should  remind  him,  how  many  hos- 


JUNIUS.  235 

tages  he  has  given  to  society.  The  ties  of  nature  come  pow- 
erfully in  aid  of  oaths  and  protestations.  The  father,  who 
considers  his  own  precarious  state  of  health,  and  the  possi- 
ble hazard  of  a  long  minority,  will  wish  to  see  the  family 
estate  free  and  unincumbered*.  What  is  the  dignity  of  the 
crown,  though  it  were  really  maintained; — -what  is  the  ho- 
nour of  parliament,  supposing  it  could  exist  without  any 
foundation  of  integrity  and  justice; — or  what  is  the  vain  re- 
putation of  firmness,  even  if  the  scheme  of  government  were 
uniform  and  consistent,  compared  with  the  heart-felt  affec- 
tions of  the  people,  with  the  happiness  and  security  of  the 
royal  family,  or  even  with  the  grateful  acclamations  of  the 
populace!  Whatever  style  of  contempt  may  be  adopted  by 
ministers  or  parliaments,  no  man  sincerely  despises  the  voice 
of  the  English  nation.  The  House  of  Commons  are  only  in- 
terpreters, whose  duty  it  is  to  convey  the  sense  of  the  people 
faithfully  to  the  crown.  If  the  interpretation  be  false  or  im- 
perfect, the  constituent  powers  are  called  upon  to  deliver 
their  own  sentiments.  Their  speech  is  rude,  but  intelligi- 
ble;— their  gestures  fierce,  but  full  of  explanation.  Perplex- 
ed by  sophistries,  their  honest  eloquence  rises  into  action. 
The  first  appeal  was  to  the  integrity  of  their  representa- 
tives;— the  second  to  the  King's  justice; — the  last  argument 
of  the  people,  whenever  they  have  recourse  to  it,  will  carry 
more  perhaps  than  persuasion  to  parliament,  or  supplication 
to  the  throne. 

JUNIUS 


LETTER  XXXIX. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE   PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  28  May,  1770. 

While  parliament  was  sitting,  it  would  neither  have  been 
safe,  nor  perhaps  quite  regular,  to  offer  any  opinion  to  the 
public,  upon  the  justice  or  wisdom  of  their  proceedings.  To 

*  Every  true  friend  of  the  house  of  Brunswick  sees  with  affliction,  ho  w 
rapidly  some  of  the  principal  branches  of  the  family  have  dropped  off. 


236  LETTERS  Of 

pronounce  fairly  upon  their  conduct,  it  was  necessary  to 
wait  until  we  could  consider,  in  one  view,  the  beginning, 
progress,  and  conclusion  of  their  deliberations.  The  cause 
of  the  public  was  undertaken  and  supported  by  men,  whose 
abilities  and  united  authority,  to  say  nothing  of  the  advan- 
tageous ground  they  stood  on,  might  well  be  thought  suffi- 
cient to  determine  a  popular  question  in  favour  of  the  peo- 
ple.   Neither   was  the  House   of  Commons  so  absolutely 
engaged  in  defence  of  the  ministry,  or  even  of  their  own 
resolutions,  but  that  they  might  have  paid  some  decent  re- 
gard to  the  known  disposition   of  their  constituents,  and, 
without  any  dishonour  to  their  firmness,  might  have  retract- 
ed an  opinion  too  hastily  adopted,  when  they  saw  the  alarm 
it  had  created,   and  how  strongly  it  was   opposed  by  the 
general  sense  of  the  nation.  The  ministry  too  would  have 
consulted  their  own  immediate   interest,  in  making  some 
concession  satisfactory  to  the  moderate  part  of  the  people. 
Without  touching  the  fact,  they  might  have  consented  to 
guard  against,  or  give  up  the  dangerous  principle,  on  which 
it  was  established.  In  this  state   of  things,  I  think  it  was 
highly  improbable  at  the  beginning  of  the  session,  that  the 
complaints  of  the  people  upon  a  matter,  which,  in  their  ap- 
prehension at  least,  immediately  affected  the  life  of  the  con- 
stitution, would  be  treated  with  as  much  contempt  by  their 
own  representatives,  and  by  the  House  of  Lords,  as  they  had 
been  by  the  other  branch  of  the  legislature.  Despairing  of 
their  integrity,  we  had  a  right  to  expect  something  from 
their  prudence,  and  something  from  their  fears.  The  Duke 
of  Grafton  certainly  did  not  foresee  to  what  an  extent  the 
corruption  of  a  parliament  might  be  carried.  He  thought, 
perhaps,  that  there  still  was  some  portion  of  shame  or  virtue 
left  in  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  or  that  there 
was  a  line  in  public  prostitution,  beyond  which  they  would 
scruple  to  proceed.  Had  the  young  man  been  a  little  more 
practised  in  the  world,  or  had  he  ventured  to  measure  the 
characters  of  other  men  by  his  own,  he  would  not  have  been 
so  easily  discouraged. 

The  prorogation  of  parliament  naturally  calls  upon  us  to 


JUNIUS.  237 

review  their  proceedings,  and  to  consider  the  condition  in 
which  they  have  left  the  kingdom.  I  do  not  question  but 
they  have  done  what  is  usually  called  the  King's  business, 
much  to  his  Majesty's  satisfaction*.  We  have  only  to  la- 
ment, that,  in  consequence  of  a  system  introduced  or  revived 
in  the  present  reign,  this  kind  of  merit  should  be  very  con- 
sistent with  the  neglect  of  every  duty  they  owe  to  the  nation. 
The  interval  between  the  opening  of  the  last  and  the  close 
of  the  former  session  was  longer  than  usualf.  Whatever 
were  the  views  of  the  minister,  in  deferring  the  meeting  of 
parliament,  sufficient  time  was  certainly  given  to  every  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Commons,  to  look  back  upon  the  steps 
he  had  taken,  and  the  consequences  they  had  produced.  The 
zeal  of  party,  the  violence  of  personal  animosities,  and  the 
heat  of  contention  had  leisure  to  subside.  From  that  period, 
whatever  resolution  they  took  was  deliberate  and  prepense. 
In  the  preceding  session,  the  dependents  of  the  ministry  had 
affected  to  believe,  that  the  final  determination  of  the  ques- 
tion would  have  satisfied  the  nation,  or  at  least  put  a  stop  to 
their  complaints;  as  if  the  certainty  of  an  evil  could  diminish 
the  sense  of  it,  or  the  nature  of  injustice  could  be  altered  by 
decision.  But  they  found  the  people  of  England  were  in  a 
temper  very  distant  from  submission;  and,  although  it  was 
contended  that  the  House  of  Commons  could  not  themselves 
reverse  a  resolution,  which  had  the  force  and  effect  of  a  ju- 
dicial sentence,  there  were  other  constitutional  expedients, 
which  would  have  given  a  security  against  any  similar  at- 
tempts for  the  future.  The  general  proposition,  in  which  the 
whole  country  had  an  interest,  might  have  been  reduced  to 
a  particular  fact,  in  which  Mr.  Wilkes  and  Mr.  Luttrel! 
would  alone  have  been  concerned.  The  House  of  Lords 
might  interpose; — the  King  might  dissolve  the  parliament; — 
or,  if  every  other  resource  failed,  there  still  lay  a  grand  con- 

*  "  The  temper  with  which  you  have  conducted  all  your  proceeding's, 
has  given  me  great  satisfaction."  King's  speech  on  closing  the  session  oi 
Parliament,  May  19,  1770.  Edit. 

f  There  was  no  autumnal  session  this  year.  Parliament  did  not  meet 
'ill  January  9,  1769—70.  Edit. 


238  LETTERS  OF 

stitutional  writ  of  error  in  behalf  of  the  people,  from  the 
decision  of  one  court  to  the  wisdom  of  the  whole  legisla- 
ture. Every  one  of  these  remedies  has  been  successively 
attempted.  The  people  performed  their  part  with  dignity, 
spirit,  and  perseverance.  For  many  months  his  Majesty 
heard  nothing  from  his  subjects  but  the  language  of  com- 
plaint and  resentment; — unhappily  for  this  country,  it  was 
the  daily  triumph  of  his  courtiers  that  he  heard  it  with  an 
indifference  approaching  to  contempt. 

The  House  of  Commons  having  assumed  a  power  un- 
known to  the  constitution,  were  determined  not  merely  to 
support  it  in  the  single  instance  in  question,  but  to  maintain 
the  doctrine  in  its  utmost  extent,  and  to  establish  the  fact  as 
a  precedent  in  law,  to  be  applied  in  whatever  manner  his 
Majesty's  servants  should  hereafter  think  fit.  Their  pro- 
ceedings upon  this  occasion  are  a  strong  proof  that  a  deci- 
sion, in  the  first  instance  illegal  and  unjust,  can  only  be  sup- 
ported by  a  continuation  of  falsehood  and  injustice.  To 
support  their  former  resolutions,  they  were  obliged  to  vio- 
late some  of  the  best  known  and  established  rules  of  the 
House.  In  one  instance  they  went  so  far  as  to  declare,  in 
open  defiance  of  truth  and  common  sense,  that  it  was  not  the 
rule  of  the  House  to  divide  a  complicated  question,  at  the 
request  of  a  member*.  But  after  trampling  upon  the  laws  of 

*  This  extravagant  resolution  appears  in  the  votes  of  the  house;  hut,  in 
the  minutes  of  the  committees,  tlie  instances  of  resolutions  contrary  to 
law  and  truth,  or  of  refusals  to  acknowledge  law  and  truth  when  proposed 
to  them,  are  innumerable.  Author. 

The  following  is  a  more  particular  explanation  of  the  fact  alluded  to: 
The  house  having  on  the  30th  of  January,  1770,  resolved  itself  into  a 
committee  on  the  state  of  the  nation,  the  ensuing  declaration  was  propos- 
ed, "  That  in  the  exercise  of  its  jurisdiction,  the  house  ought  to  judge  of 
elections  by  the  law  of  the  land,  and  by  the  custom  of  parliament,  which 
is  part  of  that  law."  This  being  the  first  of  a  string  of  resolutions  that 
were  to  lead  to  a  condemnation  of  the  principles  on  which  the  determina- 
tion of  the  Middlesex  election  had  taken  place,  it  was  contended  on  the 
part  of  the  ministry  that  according  to  the  usage  of  the  house,  the  entire 
-.eries  could  not  be  divided;  to  which  the  speaker  having  assented,  the 
ministry  next  moved  that  the  whole  of  the  intended  resolutions,  except 
he  first,  should  be  omitted,  and  that  the  following  amendment,  should  be 
t.Tdpd  to  'it-—"  And  that   the  iudgment  of  this  house  in  the  case  of  John 

Wilkes 


JUNIUS.  239 

the  land,  it  was  not  wonderful  that  they  should  treat  the 
private  regulations  of  their  own  assembly  with  equal  disre- 
gard. The  speaker,  being  young  in  office,  began  with  pre- 
tending ignorance,  and  ended  with  deciding  for  the  minis- 
try. We  were  not  surprized  at  the  decision;  but  he  hesi- 
tated and  blushed  at  his  own  baseness*,  and  every  man  was 
astonishedf. 

The  interest  of  the  public  was  vigorously  supported  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  Their  right  to  defend  the  constitution 
against  any  encroachment  of  the  other  estates,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  exerting  it  at  this  period,  was  urged  to  them  with 
every  argument,  that  could  be  supposed  to  influence  the 
heart  or  the  understanding.  But  it  soon  appeared,  that  they 
had  already  taken  their  part,  and  were  determined  to  sup- 
port the  House  of  Commons,  not  only  at  the  expence  of  truth 
and  decency,  but  even  by  a  surrender  of  their  own  most  im- 
portant rights.  Instead  of  performing  that  duty  which  the 
constitution  expects  from  them,  in  return  for  the  dignity  and 
independence  of  their  station,  in  return  for  the  hereditary 
share  it  has  given  them  in  the  legislature,  the  majority  of 
them  made  common  cause  with  the  other  house  in  oppress- 

Wilkes  was  agreeable  to  the  law  of  the  land,  and  fully  authorized  by  the 
practice  of  parliament."  This  was  carried  by  224  to  180.  Edit. 

*  Sir  Fletcher  Norton  was  now  speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He- 
had  commenced  his  political  career  as  a  violent  Whig:  but  for  some  time 
past  had  exhibited  the  most  complete  tergiversation,  and  had  been  as 
warm  in  the  cause  of  Toryism,  as  the  warmest  of  its  oldest  espousers.  He 
was  elected  to  the  chair  January  22,  1770,  on  the  resignation  of  Sir  John 
Cust,  through  ill  health,  and  who  died  on  the  same  day  that  Sir  Fletcher 
succeeded  him.    Edit. 

f  When  the  King  first  made  it  a  measure  of  his  government  to  destroy 
Mr.  Wilkes,  and  when  for  this  purpose  it  was  necessary  to  run  down  pri- 
vilege, Sir  Fletcher  Norton,  with  his  usual  prostituted  effrontery,  assured 
the  House  of  Commons,  that  he  should  regard  one  of  their  votes,  no  more 
than  a  resolution  of  so  many  drunken  porters.  This  is  the  very  lawye7*, 
whom  Ben  Jonson  describes  in  the  following  lines: 

*'-  Gives  forked  counsel;  takes  provoking  gold, 

On  either  hand,  and  puts  it  up. 

So  wise,  so  grave,  of  so  perplex'd  a  tongue, 

And  loud  withal,  that  would  not  wag,  nor  scarce 

Lie  still  without  ajee" 


240  LETTERS  OF 

ing  the  people,  and  established  another  doctrine  as  false  in 
itself,  and  if  possible  more  pernicious  to  the  constitution, 
than  that  on  which  the  Middlesex  election  was  determined. 
By  resolving  "  that  they  had  no  right  to  impeach  a  judg- 
ment of  the  House  of  Commons  in  any  case  whatsoever,  where 
that  house  has  a  competent  jurisdiction,"*  they  in  effect 
gave  up  that  constitutional  check  and  reciprocal  controul  of 
one  branch  of  the  legislature  over  the  other,  which  is  per- 
haps the  greatest  and  most  important  object  provided  for  by 
the  division  of  the  whole  legislative  power  into  three  estates; 
and  now,  let  the  judicial  decisions  of  the  House  of  Commons 
be  ever  so  extravagant,  let  their  declarations  of  the  law  be  ever 
so  flagrantly  false,  arbitrary,  and  oppressive  to  the  subject,  the 
House  of  Lords  have  imposed  a  slavish  silence  upon  them- 
selves;—they  cannot  interpose, — they  cannot  protect  the  sub- 
ject,— they  cannot  defend  the  laws  of  their  country.  A  conces- 
sion so  extraordinary  in  itself,  so  contradictory  to  the  princi- 
ples of  their  own  institution,  cannot  but  alarm  the  most  unsus- 
pecting mind.  We  may  well  conclude,  that  the  Lords  would 
hardly  have  yielded  so  much  to  the  other  house,  without  the 
certainty  of  a  compensation,  which  can  only  be  made  to  them 
at  the  expense  of  the  people.  The  arbitrary  power  they  have 
assumed  of  imposing  fines  and  committing,  during  pleasure, 
will  now  be  exercised  in  its  full  extentf.  The  House  of 
Commons  are  too  much  in  their  debt  to  question  or  inter- 

*  A  motion  similar  to  that  recited  in  the  note  to  p  238,  was  made  by  the 
Marquis  of  Rockingham,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  declaring  "That  the  law 
of  the  land  and  the  established  customs  of  parliament  were  the  sole  rule  of 
determination  in  all  cases  of  election,"  which  having  been  lost,  was  met 
by  one  to  the  purport  of  that  before  quoted,  which  was  carried  by  a  large 
majority;  in  consequence  of  which  two  most  strong  and  able  protests  were 
entered  upon  the  journals  of  the  house,  which  were  signed  by  no  less  than 
forty-two  peers.  In  the  last  of  these,  the  protesting  Lords  pledged  them- 
selves to  the  public,  that  they  would  avail  themselves,  as  far  as  in  them 
I  ay,  of  every  right  and  every  power  with  which  the  constitution  had  armed 
them  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  in  order  to  obtain  full  relief  in  behalf  of 
the  injured  electors  of  Great  Britain.  Edit. 

f  The  man  who  resists  and  overcomes  this  iniquitous  power,  assumed 
by  the  Lords,  must  be  supported  by  the  whole  people.  We  have  the  laws 
of  our  side,  and  want  nothing  but  an  intrepid  leader.  When  such  a  man 
■  Is  forth,  let  the  nation  look  to  it.  It  is  not  hit  cause,  but  our  own. 


JUNIUS.  24i 

rupt  their  proceedings.  The  crown  too,  we  may  be  well 
assured,  will  lose  nothing  in  this  new  distribution  of  power. 
After  declaring,  that  to  petition  for  a  dissolution  of  parlia- 
ment is  irreconcileable  with  the  principles  of  the  constitu- 
tion*, his  Majesty  has  reason  to  expect  that  some  extraor- 
dinary compliment  will  be  returned  to  the  royal  prerogative. 
The  three  branches  of  the  legislature  seem  to  treat  their 
separate  rights  and  interests  as  the  Roman  Triumvirs  did 
their  friends.  They  reciprocally  sacrifice  them  to  the  animo- 
sities of  each  other,  and  establish  a  detestable  union  among 
themselves,  upon  the  ruin  of  the  laws  and  liberty  of  the 
commonwealth. 

Through  the  whole  proceedings  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  this  session,  there  is  an  apparent,  a  palpable  con- 
sciousness of  guilt,  which  has  prevented  their  daring  to 
assert  their  own  dignity,  where  it  has  been  immediately  and 
grossly  attacked.  In  the  course  of  doctor  Musgrave's  exa- 
mination, he  said  every  thing  that  can  be  conceived  morti- 
fying to  individuals,  or  offensive  to  the  house.  They  voted 
his  information  frivolous,  but  they  were  awed  by  his  firm- 
ness and  integrity,  and  sunk  under  itf.  The  terms,  in  which 
the  sale  of  a  patent  to  Mr.  Hine  were  communicated  to  the 
public^,  naturally  called  for  a  parliamentary  inquiry.  The 
integrity  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  directly  impeached; 
but  they  had  not  courage  to  move  in  their  own  vindication, 
because  the  inquiry  would  have  been  fatal  to  colonel  Bur- 
go\ne,  and  the  Duke  of  Grafton.  When  Sir  George  Saville 
branded  them  with  the  name  of  traitors  to  their  constituents, 
when  the  lord  mayor,  the  sheriffs,  and  Mr.  Trecothick,  ex- 
pressly avowed  and  maintained  every  part  of  the  city  remon- 
strance, why  did  they  tamely  submit  to  be  insulted?  Why 

*  See  Editor's  note  to  Letter  xxxvu.  p.  219  of  this  vol.  Edit. 

f  The  examination  of  this  firm,  honest  man,  is  printed  for  Almon.  The 
reader  will  find  it  a  most  curious,  and  a  most  interesting  tract.  Doctor 
Musgrave,  with  no  other  support  but  truth,  and  his  own  firmness,  resisted, 
and  overcame  the  whole  House  of  Commons-  Author. 

For  a  further  account  of  the  transaction  referred  to,  see  Editor's  note  to 
Juvius,  No.  xxiii.  p.  145  of  this  vol.  Edit. 

\  See  Junius,  Letter  xxxiii.  Edit. 

Vol.  I.  2H 


M2  LETTERS  OF 

did  they  not  immediately  expel  those  refractory  members? 
Conscious  of  the  motives,  on  which  they  had  acted,  they 
prudently  preferred  infamy  to  danger,  and  were  better  pre- 
pared to  meet  the  contempt,  than  to  rouse  the  indignation 
of  the  whole  people.  Had  they  expelled  those  five  mem- 
bers*, the  consequences  of  the  new  doctrine  of  incapacitation 
would  have  come  immediately  home  to  every  man.  The 
truth  of  it  would  then  have  been  fairly  tried,  without  any 
reference  to  Mr.  Wilkes's  private  character,  or  the  dignity 
of  the  house,  or  the  obstinacy  of  one  particular  county. 
These  topics,  I  know,  have  had  their  weight  with  men,  who 
affecting  a  character  of  moderation,  in  reality  consult  no- 
thing but  their  own  immediate  ease; — who  are  weak  enough 
to  acquiesce  under  a  flagrant  violation  of  the  laws,  when  it 
does  not  directly  touch  themselves,  and  care  not  what  injus- 
tice is  practised  upon  a  man,  whose  moral  character  they 
piously  think  themselves  obliged  to  condemn.  In  any  other 
circumstances,  the  House  of  Commons  must  have  forfeited 
all  credit  and  dignity,  if,  after  such  gross  provocation,  they 
had  permitted  those  five  gentlemen  to  sit  any  longer  among 
them.  We  should  then  have  seen  and  felt  the  operation  of  a 
precedent,  which  is  represented  to  be  perfectly  barren  and 
harmless.  But  there  is  a  set  of  men  in  this  country,  whose 
understandings  measure  the  violation  of  law,  by  the  magni- 
tude of  the  instance,  not  by  the  important  consequences, 
which  flow  directly  from  the  principle,  and  the  minister,  I 
presume,  did  not  think  it  safe  to  quicken  their  apprehension 
too  soon.  Had  Mr.  Hampden  reasoned  and  acted  like  the 
moderate  men  of  these  days,  instead  of  hazarding  his  whole 
fortune  in  a  law-suit  with  the  crown,  he  would  have  quietly 
paid  the  twenty  shillings  demanded  of  him, — the  Stuart 
family  would  probably  have  continued  upon  the  throne,  and, 
at  this  moment,  the  imposition  of  ship-money  would  have 
been  an  acknowledged  prerogative  of  the  crown. 

What  then  has  been  the  business  of  the   session,  after 
voting  the  supplies,  and  confirming  the  determination  of  the 

*  The  five  members  alluded  to  are  Sir  George  Saville,  Mr.  Beckford 
Mr.  Townshend,  Mr.  Sawbridge,  and  Mr.  Trecothick.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  243 

Middlesex  election?  The  extraordinary  prorogation  of  the 
Irish  parliament*,  and  the  just  discontents  of  that  kingdom, 
have  been  passed  by  without  notice.  Neither  the  general 
situation  of  our  colonies,  nor  that  particular  distress  which 
forced  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  to  take  up  arms  in  their  de- 
fence, have  been  thought  worthy  of  a  moment's  considera- 
tion!. In  the  repeal  of  those  acts,  which  were  most  offensive 
to  America,  the  parliament  have  done  every  thing,  but  re- 
move the  offence.  They  have  relinquished  the  revenue,  but 
judiciously  taken  care  to  preserve  the  contention.  It  is  not 
pretended  that  the  continuance  of  the  tea  duty  is  to  produce 
any  direct  benefit  whatsoever  to  the  mother  country.  What 
is  it  then  but  an  odious,  unprofitable  exertion  of  a  specula- 

*  A  law  had  lately  passed  in  the  Irish  legislature,  rendering  the  Irish 
parliaments  octennial: — prior  to  this  period,  they  had  been  cf  longer  dura- 
tion, and  it  was  against  tlie  will  of  the  court  that  the  law  was  enacted 
The  parliament  that  passed  it  was  prorogued  immediately  afterwards, 
and  then  dissolved,  under  the  hope  of  a  more  tractable  parliament  in 
future.  The  minister,  however,  was  deceived:  for  the  new  parliament  ob- 
jected, shortly  after  its  meeting,  to  passing  the  proposed  money-bill,  in 
consequence  of  its  having  originated  in  the  Privy-council,  instead  of  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Lord  Townshend,  the  lord-lieutenant,  on  December 
2,  entered  a  protest  on  the  journals  of  the  Upper  House  against  the  re- 
jection of  this  bill;  and  intended  to  have  done  the  same  on  the  journals  of 
the  House  of  Commons;  but  the  latter  would  not  suffer  him.  Edit. 

\  The  different  schemes  devised  for  making  the  colonies  amenable  to 
the  legislature  of  Great  Britain,  are  glanced  at  in  the  note  to  Junius, 
Letter  xii.  p.  92,  of  this  vol.  After  the  repeal  of  the  stamp  act,  it  was  tried 
whether  the  Americans  would  submit  to  certain  custom-house  duties,  as 
upon  glass,  red-lead,  tea,  &c.  But  it  was  the  principle  itself  that  was  ob- 
noxious to  the  Americans:  and  hence  this  attempt  was  as  strenuously 
resisted  as  the  former.  These  latter  duties  were  in  consequence  all  relin- 
quished,  excepting  that  on  tea.  The  Americans,  however,  would  not  sub- 
mit to  this  modification,  which  as  much  infringed  upon  their  principle,  as 
if  no  part  whatever  had  been  relinquished:  government  nevertheless  in- 
sisted upon  retaining  this  impost,  and  the  result  is  well  known.  Yet  hosti- 
lities may  be  said  to  have  commenced  in  the  first  instance  at  Boston,  from 
a  private  dispute  between  two  or  three  soldiers  quartered  there,  and  a 
party  of  rope-makers.  The  soldiers  in  this  quarrel  were  joined  by  their 
comrades  and  even  by  their  officers,  and  the  rope-makers  by  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  town:  in  the  scuffle  that  ensued,  the  officers  were  struck,  the 
3oldiers  fired,  and  several  persons  in  the  mob  were  killed  or  wounded. 
Captain  Preston,  the  commanding  officer,  was  afterwards  tried  but  ac- 
quitted. Edit. 


244  LETTERS  OF 

tive  right,  and  fixing  a  badge  of  slavery  upon  the  Americans, 
without  service  to  their  masters?  But  it  has  pleased  God  to 
give  us  a  ministry  and  a  parliament,  who  are  neither  to  be 
persuaded  by  argument,  nor  instructed  by  experience. 

Lord  North,  I  presume,  will  not  claim  any  extraordinary 
merit  from  any  thing  he  has  done  this  year  in  the  improve- 
ment or  application  of  the  revenue.  A  great  operation, 
directed  to  an  important  object,  though  it  should  fail  of  suc- 
cess, marks  the  genius  and  elevates  the  character  of  a  minis- 
ter. A  poor  contracted  understanding  deals  in  little  schemes, 
which  dishonour  him  if  they  fail,  and  do  him  no  credit  when 
they  succeed.  Lord  North  had  fortunately  the  means  in  his 
possession  of  reducing  all  the  four  per  cents  at  once*.  The 
failure  of  his  first  enterprize  in  finance  is  not  half  so  dis- 
graceful to  his  reputation  as  a  minister,  as  the  enterprize 
itself  is  injurious  to  the  public.  Instead  of  striking  one  deci- 
sive blow,  which  would  have  cleared  the  market  at  once, 
upon  terms  proportioned  to  the  price  of  the  four  per  cents 

*  The  stock  denominated  three  per  cents,  had  arisen  from  a  loan  of  two 
millions  raised  by  government  in  the  29th  of  Geo.  II.  for  which  a  lottery 
and  redeemable  annuities  at  three  pounds  ten  shillings  percent-  had  been 
granted  and  secured.  Of  the  annuities  one  quarter  had  been  paid  off,  and 
the  sinking  fund,  which  was  charged  with  the  remainder,  was  at  this 
time  so  fully  capable  of  liquidating  it,  that  a  notice  to  this  effect  had  been 
given  by  an  order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  dated  April  26,  1770. 

In  consequence  of  this  flourishing  state  of  the  three  per  cents,  into 
which  almost  every  one  was  buying,  the  four  per  cents  had  been  much 
forsaken,  and  had  sunk  below  their  level.  Lord  North,  by  a  small  bonus, 
might  have  induced  all  the  holders  of  this  stock  to  have  transferred  it  into 
three  per  cents  instead  of  receiving  four,  which  would  have  been  a  great 
relief  to  the  public  debt;  but,  though  the  minister  was  open  to  this  convic- 
tion, he  went  to  work  with  a  timid  hand,  and  took  so  much  time  to  com- 
plete what  he  did  intend,  as  to  forfeit  every  advantage  he  might  at  first 
have  derived.  Instead  of  making  a  proposal  of  this  kind  to  embrace  the 
■whole  of  the  four  per  cents,  he  proposed  to  convert  only  two  millions  and  a 
quarter  of  them  into  three  per  cents,  and  that  the  bonus  should  be  a  lottery 
for  five  hundred  thousand  pounds,  divided  into  fifty  thousand  tickets,  of 
which  every  holder  of  a  hundred  pounds  capital  should  be  intitled,  for  this 
supposed  difference  of  fourteen  pounds  sterling,  to  two  of  such  lottery 
tickets.  In  the  prospect  of  this  scheme  the  four  per  cents  began  to  rise  at 
the  expence  of  the  three  per  cents,  and  the  object,  so  far  as  regarded 
pecuniary  advantage,  was  completely  frustrated.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  245 

six  weeks  ago,  he  has  tampered  with  a  pitiful  portion  of  a 
commodity,  which  ought  never  to  have  been  touched  but  in 
gross; — he  has  given  notice  to  the  holders  of  that  stock,  of  a 
design  formed  by  government  to  prevail  upon  them  to  sur- 
render it  by  degrees,  consequently  has  warned  them  to  hold 
up  and  inhance  the  price; — so  that  the  plan  of  reducing  the 
four  per  cents  must  either  be  dropped  entirely,  or  continued 
with  an  increasing  disadvantage  to  the  public.  The  minis- 
ter's sagacity  has  served  to  raise  the  value  of  the  thing  he 
means  to  purchase,  and  to  sink  that  of  the  three  per  cents, 
which  it  is  his  purpose  to  sell.  In  effect,  he  has  contrived  to 
make  it  the  interest  of  the  proprietor  of  four  per  cents  to  sell 
out  and  buy  three  per  cents  in  the  market,  rather  than  sub- 
scribe his  stock  upon  any  terms,  that  can  possibly  be  offered 
by  government. 

The  state  of  the  nation  leads  us  naturally  to  consider  the 
situation  of  the  King.  The  prorogation  of  parliament  has 
the  effect  of  a  temporary  dissolution.  The  odium  of  mea- 
sures adopted  by  the  collective  body  sits  lightly  upon  the 
separate  members,  who  composed  it.  They  retire  into  sum- 
mer quarters,  and  rest  from  the  disgraceful  labours  of  the 
c.mpaign.  But  as  for  the  Sovereign,  it  is  not  so  with  him. 
He  has  a  permanent  existence  in  this  country;  He  cannot 
withdraw  himself  from  the  complaints,  the  discontents,  the 
reproaches  of  his  subjects.  They  pursue  him  to  his  retire- 
ment, and  invade  his  domestic  happiness,  when  no  address 
can  be  obtained  from  an  obsequious  parliament  to  encourage 
or  console  him.  In  other  times,  the  interest  of  the  King  and 
people  of  England  was,  as  it  ought  to  be,  entirely  the  same. 
A  new  system  has  not  only  been  adopted  in  fact,  but  pro- 
fessed  upon  principle.  Ministers  are  no  longer  the  public 
servants  of  the  state,  but  the  private  domestics  of  the  Sove- 
reign. One  particular  class  of  men  are  permitted  to  cali 
themselves  the  King's  friends*,  as  if  the  body  of  the  people 

*  "  An  ignorant,  mercenary,  and  servile  crew;  unanimous  in  evil,  dili- 
gent in  mischief,  variable  in  principles,  constant  to  flattery,  talkers  for 
liberty,  but  slaves  to  power; — stiling  themselves  the  court  party,  and  the 
Prince's  only  friends."  Davenant. 


246  LETTERS  OF 

were  the  King's  enemies;  or  as  if  his  Majesty  looked  for  a 
resource  or  consolation,  in  the  attachment  of  a  few  favour- 
ites, against  the  general  contempt  and  detestation  of  his  sub- 
jects. Edward,  and  Richard  the  second,  made  the  same  dis- 
tinction between  the  collective  body  of  the  people,  and  a 
contemptible  party,  who  surrounded  the  throne.  The  event 
of  their  mistaken  conduct  might  have  been  a  warning  to  their 
successors.  Yet  the  errors  of  those  princes  were  not  without 
excuse.  They  had  as  many  false  friends,  as  our  present  gra- 
cious Sovereign,  and  infinitely  greater  temptations  to  seduce 
them.  They  were  neither  sober,  religious,  nor  demure.  In- 
toxicated with  pleasure,  they  wasted  their  inheritance  in 
pursuit  of  it.  Their  lives  were  like  a  rapid  torrent,  brilliant 
in  prospect,  though  useless  or  dangerous  in  its  course.  In 
the  dull,  unanimated  existence  of  other  princes,  we  see 
nothing  but  a  sickly,  stagnant  water,  which  taints  the  atmos- 
phere without  fertilizing  the  soil. — The  morality  of  a  King 
is  not  to  be  measured  by  vulgar  rules.  His  situation  is  sin- 
gular. There  are  faults  which  do  him  honour,  and  virtues 
that  disgrace  him.  A  faultless,  insipid  equality  in  his  cha- 
racter, is  neither  capable  of  vice  nor  virtue  in  the  extreme; 
but  it  secures  his  submission  to  those  persons,  whom  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  respect,  and  makes  him  a  dangerous  in- 
strument of  their  ambition.  Secluded  from  the  world,  at- 
tached from  his  infancy  to  one  set  of  persons,  and  one  set  of 
ideas,  he  can  neither  open  his  heart  to  new  connexions,  nor 
his  mind  to  better  information.  A  character  of  this  sort  is 
the  soil  fittest  to  produce  that  obstinate  bigotry  in  politics 
and  religion,  which  begins  with  a  meritorious  sacrifice  of  the 
understanding,  and  finally  conducts  the  monarch  and  the 
martyr  to  the  block. 

At  any  other  period,  I  doubt  not,  the  scandalous  disor- 
ders, which  have  been  introduced  into  the  government  of  all 
the  dependencies  of  the  Empire,  would  have  roused  the  at- 
tention of  the  public.  The  odious  abuse  and  prostitution  of 
the  prerogative  at  home, — the  unconstitutional  employment 
of  the  military — the  arbitrary  fines  and  commitments  by  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  court  of  King's  Bench; — the  mercy  of 


JUNIUS.  247 

a  chaste  and  pious  Prince  extended  cheerfully  to  a  wilful 
murderer,  because  that  murderer  is  the  brother  of  a  com- 
mon prostitute",  would,  I  think,  at  any  other  time,  have  ex- 
cited universal  indignationf.  But  the  daring  attack  upon  the 
constitution,  in  the  Middlesex  election,  makes  us  callous  and 
indifferent  to  inferior  grievances.  No  man  regards  an  erup- 
tion upon  the  surface,  when  the  noble  parts  are  invaded,  and 
he  feels  a  mortification  approaching  to  his  heart.  The  free 
election  of  our  representatives  in  parliament  comprehends, 
because  it  is,  the  source  and  security  of  every  right  and  pri- 
vilege of  the  English  nation.  The  ministry  have  realised  the 
compendious  ideas  of  Caligula.  They  know  that  the  liberty, 
the  laws,  and  property  of  an  Englishman  have  in  truth  but 
one  neck,  and  that  to  violate  the  freedom  of  election  strikes 
deeply  at  them  all. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XL. 

TO  LORD  NORTH. 
My  Lord,  22  Aug1.  1770. 

Mr.  Luttrell's  services  were  the  chief  support  and  orna- 
ment of  the  Duke  of  Grafton's  administration.  The  honour 
of  rewarding  them  was  reserved  for  your  Lordship.  The 
Duke,  it  seems,  had  contracted  an  obligation  he  was  ashamed 
to  acknowledge,  and  unable  to  acquit.  You,  my  lord,  had  nc 
scruples.  You  accepted  the  succession  with  all  its  incum- 
brances, and  have  paid  Mr.  Luttrell  his  legacy,  at  the  hazard 
ef  ruining  the  estate. 

*  Miss  Kennedy. 

f  Matthew  and  Patrick  Kennedy  had  been  condemned  to  suffer  death 
for  the  murder  of  John  Bigby,  a  watchman.  Their  sister,  Miss  Kennedy, 
was  a  prostitute  well  known  to  many  of  the  courtiers  of  the  day,  and  her 
intercession  availed  to  obtain  for  them,  first  a  respite,  and  afterwards  a 
pardon  The  widow  of  Bigby,  nevertheless,  laid  an  appeal  against  the 
murderers;  and  a  new  trial  was  appointed.  The  friends  of  Miss  Kennedy, 
however,  bought  them  off,  by  a  present  to  the  widow  of  three  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds;  and,  in  consequence,  she  desisted  from  appearing  against 
'he  prisoners  when  they  were  arraigned-  Edit. 


248  LETTERS  OF 

When  this  accomplished  youth  declared  himself  the  cham- 
pion of  government,  the  world  was  busy  in  enquiring  what 
honours  or  emoluments  could  be  a  sufficient  recompence,  to 
a  young  man  of  his  rank  and  fortune,  for  submitting  to  mark 
his  entrance  into  life  with  the  universal  contempt  and  detes- 
tation of  his  country. — His  noble  father  had  not  been  so  pre- 
cipitate.— To  vacate  his  seat  in  parliament;— to  intrude  upon 
a  county  in  which  he  had  no  interest  or  connexion; — to  pos- 
sess himself  of  another  man's  right,  and  to  maintain  it  in  de- 
fiance of  public  shame  as  well  as  justice,  bespoke  a  degree  of 
zeal  or  of  depravity,  which  all  the  favour  of  a  pious  Prince 
could  hardly  requite.  I  protest,  my  Lord,  there  is  in  this 
young  man's  conduct,  a  strain  of  prostitution,  which,  for  its 
singularity,  I  cannot  but  admire.  He  has  discovered  a  new 
line  in  the  human  character; — he  has  degraded  even  the 
name  of  Luttrell,  and  gratified  his  father's  most  sanguine 
expectations. 

The  Duke  of  Grafton,  with  every  possible  disposition  to 
patronise  this  kind  of  merit,  was  contented  with  pronouncing 
colonel  Luttrell's  panegyric*.  The  gallant  spirit,  the  disin- 
terested zeal  of  the  young  adventurer,  were  echoed  through 
the  House  of  Lords.  His  Grace  repeatedly  pledged  himself 
to  the  house,  as  an  evidence  of  the  purity  of  his  friend  Mr. 
Luttrell's  intentions; — that  he  had  engaged  without  any 
prospect  of  personal  benefit,  and  that  the  idea  of  compensa- 
tion would  mortally  offend  himf.  The  noble  Duke  could 
hardly  be  in  earnest;  but  he  had  lately  quitted  his  employ- 
ment, and  began  to  think  it  necessary  to  take  some  care  of 
his  reputation.  At  that  very  moment  the  Irish  negociation 
was  probably  begun. — Come  forward,  thou  worthy  repre- 
sentative of  Lord  Bute,  and  tell  this  insulted  country,  who 
advised  the  King  to  appoint  Mr.  Luttrell  adjutant-gene- 
ral to  the  army  in  Ireland.  By  what  management  was  colo- 
nel Cuninghame  prevailed  on  to  resign  his  employment,  and 
the  obsequious  Gisborne  to  accept  of  a  pension  for  the  go- 

*  At  this  time  lie  was  only  lieutenant-colonel.  Edit. 
|  He  now  says  that  his  great  object  is  the  rank  of  colonel,  and  that  he 
■will  have  it- 


JUNIUS.  249 

vernment  of  Kinsale*?  Was  it  an  original  stipulation  with 
the  Princess  of  Wales,  or  does  he  owe  his  preferment  to 
your  Lordship's  partiality,  or  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford's 
friendship?  My  Lord,  though  it  may  not  be  possible  to  trace 
this  measure  to  its  source,  we  can  follow  the  stream,  and 
warn  the  country  of  its  approaching  destruction.  The  Eng- 
lish nation  must  be  roused,  and  put  upon  its  guard.  Mr. 
Luttrell  has  already  shewn  us  how  far  he  may  be  trusted, 
whenever  an  open  attack  is  to  be  made  upon  the  liberties  of 
this  country.  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  is  a  deliberate  plan 
formed. Your  Lordship  best  knows  by  whom; — the  cor- 
ruption of  the  legislative  body  on  this  side — a  military  force 
on  the  other — and  then,  Farewell  to  England!  It  is  impossi- 
ble that  any  minister  shall  dare  to  advise  the  King  to  place 
such  a  man  as  Luttrell  in  the  confidential  post  of  adjutant- 
general,  if  there  were  not  some  secret  purpose  in  view, 
which  only  such  a  man  as  Luttrell  is  fit  to  promote.  The  in- 
sult offered  to  the  army  in  general  is  as  gross  as  the  outrage 
intended  to  the  people  of  England.  What!  Lieutenant-colo- 
nel Luttrell,  adjutant-general  of  an  army  of  sixteen  thousand 
men!  one  would  think  his  Majesty's  campaigns  at  Black- 
heath  and  Wimbledon  might  have  taught  him  better. — I 
cannot  help  wishing  general  Harvey  joy  of  a  colleague,  who 
does  so  much  honour  to  the  employment. — But,  my  Lord, 
this  measure  is  too  daring  to  pass  unnoticed,  too  dangerous 
to  be  received  with  indifference  or  submission.  You  shall  not 
have  time  to  new-model  the  Irish  army.  They  will  not  sub- 
mit to  be  garbled  by  colonel  Luttrell.  As  a  mischief  to  the 

*  This  infamous  transaction  ought  to  be  explained  to  the  public.  Colo- 
nel Gisborne  was  quarter-master-general  in  Ireland.  Lord  Townshend 
persuades  him  to  resign  to  a  Scotch  officer,  one  Fraser,  and  gives  him  the 
government  of  Kinsale. — Colonel  Cuninghame  was  adjutant-general  in 
Ireland.  Lord  Townshend  offers  him  a  pension,  to  induce  him  to  resign 
to  Luttrell.  Cuninghame  treats  the  offer  with  contempt.  What's  to  be 
done?  poor  Gisborne  must  move  once  more. —  He  accepts  of  a  pension  of 
500/.  a  year,  until  a  government  of  greater  value  shall  become  vacant. 
Colonel  Cuninghame  is  made  governor  of  Kinsale;  and  Luttrell,  at  last, 
for  whom  the  whole  machinery  is  put  in  motion,  becomes  adjutant-gene- 
ral, and  in  effect  takes  the  command  of  the  army  in  Ireland 
Vol.  I,  2  1 


250  LETTERS  OF 

English  constitution,  (for  he  is  not  worth  the  name  of  ene- 
my) they  already  detest  him.  As  a  boy,  impudently  thrust 
over  their  heads,  they  will  receive  him  with  indignation  and 
contempt. — As  for  you,  my  Lord,  who  perhaps  are  no  more 
than  the  blind,  unhappy  instrument  of  Lord  Bute  and  her 
Royal  Highness  the  Princess  of  Wales,  be  assured  that  you 
shall  be  called  upon  to  answer  for  the  advice,  which  has  been 
given,  and  either  discover  your  accomplices,  or  fall  a  sacri- 
fice to  their  security*. 

JUNIUS. 

*  A  few  days  after  this  letter  made  its  appearance,  the  writer  sent  the 
following'  article  to  the  Printer  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  which  was  in- 
serted according  to  its  date. 

INTELLIGENCE  EXTRAORDINARY. 

Sept.  7, 1770. 
Colonel  Luttrell  has  resigned  the  post  of  adjutant-general  in  Ireland. 
The  necessity  of  the  times  had  left  the  minister  no  alternative,  except  the 
sacrifice  of  this  unworthy  tool  of  power,  or  of  himself.  The  dismission  is 
too  ridiculous  either  to  deceive  the  public,  or  screen  the  guilty.  Does  co- 
lonel Luttrell  expect  to  find  a  shelter  from  contempt  by  shunning  the  re- 
wards of  infamy?  a  character  so  well  established  as  his  own,  will  render 
such  resources  needless.  Does  the  minister  console  himself  with  any 
hopes  of  crushing  the  most  severe  inquiries,  because  he  ha9  meanly  re- 
scinded this  detestable  promotion?  The  vanity  of  such  dependencies  may 
be  confirmed  before  the  period  of  another  session.  As  very  few  forms  con- 
curred to  this  appointment,  except  private  commissions  to  a  lord  lieute- 
nant, we  shall  not  be  surprized  at  that  effrontery  which  may  hereafter 
deny  the  whole  transaction:  It  is  not,  however,  lost  in  ignorance,  because 
the  royal  fiat  had,  purposely,  delayed  its  progress  through  the  offices  of 
the  secretaries  of  state.  It  never,  perhaps,  was  intended  that  this  circum- 
stance should  have  been  made  public  till  the  destruction  of  our  rights  had 
been  at  least  more  easily  to  be  accomplished  than  it  is  at  present.  Let  not 
this  insulted  country  be  for  a  moment  off  its  guard.  To  make  the  blow 
secure,  the  dagger  that  is  to  wound  the  constitution  will  be  as  much  as 
possible  cencealed  until  the  instant  that  it  strikes.  From  the  intentions  of 
administration  every  thing  is  to  be  dreaded;  their  timidity,  indeed,  as  in 
the  present  case,  may  draw  a  line,  which,  were  they  only  to  consult  the 
violence  of  inclination,  they  might  resolve  to  pass,  although  the  track  were 
marked  with  horror,  blood,  and  desolation.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  251 


LETTER  XLI. 

JTO  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE  LORD  MANSFIELD*. 
My  Lord,  14  November,  1770. 

The  appearance  of  this  letter  will  attract  the  curiosity  of 
the  public,  and  command  even  your  Lordship's  attention.  I 
am  considerably  in  your  debt,  and  shall  endeavour,  once  for 
all,  to  balance  the  account.  Accept  of  this  address,  my  Lord, 
as  \  prologue  to  more  important  scenes,  in  which  you  will 
probably  be  called  upon  to  act  or  suffer. 

You  will  not  question  my  veracity,  when  I  assure  you  that 
it  has  not  been  owing  to  any  particular  respect  for  your  per- 
son that  I  have  abstained  from  you  so  long.  Besides  the  dis- 
tress and  danger  with  which  the  press  is  threatened,  when 
your  lordship  is  party,  and  the  party  is  to  be  judge,  I  con- 
fess I  have  been  deterred  by  the  difficulty  of  the  task.  Our 
language  has  no  term  of  reproach,  the  mind  has  no  idea  of 
detestation,  which  has  not  already  been  happily  applied  to 
you,  and  exhausted. — Ample  justice  has  been  done  by  abler 
pens  than  mine  to  the  separate  merits  of  your  life  and  cha- 
racter. Let  it  be  my  humble  office  to  collect  the  scattered 
sweets,  till  their  united  virtue  tortures  the  sense. 

Permit  me  to  begin  with  paying  a  just  tribute  to  Scotch 
sincerity,  wherever  I  find  it.  I  own  I  am  not  apt  to  confide 
in  the  professions  of  gentlemen  of  that  country,  and  when 
they  smile,  I  feel  an  involuntary  emotion  to  guard  myself 
against  mischief.  With  this  general  opinion  of  an  ancient 
nation,  I  always  thought  it  much  to  your  lordship's  honour, 
that,  in  your  earlier  days,  you  were  but  little  infected  with 
the  prudence  of  your  country.  You  had  some  original  attach- 
ments, which  you  took  every  proper  opportunity  to  acknow- 
ledge. The  liberal  spirit  of  youth  prevailed  over  your  native 
discretion.  Your  zeal  in  the  cause  of  an  unhappy  prince  was 
expressed  with  the  sincerity  of  wine,  and  some  of  the  solem- 

"  ^ee  the  Private  Letter,  No.  24.  which  accompanied  this  address.  Ed:  - 


^52  LETTERS  Ox 

nities  of  religion*.  This,  I  conceive,  is  the  most  amiable 
point  of  view,  in  which  your  character  has  appeared.  Like 
an  honest  man,  you  took  that  part  in  politics,  which  might 
have  been  expected  from  your  birth,  education,  country  and 
connections.  There  was  something  generous  in  your  attach- 
ment to  the  banished  house  of  Stuart.  We  lament  the  mis- 
takes of  a  good  man,  and  do  not  begin  to  detest  him  until  he 
affects  to  renounce  his  principles.  Why  did  you  not  adhere 
to  that  loyalty  you  once  professed?  Why  did  you  not  follow 
the  example  of  your  worthy  brotherf?  With  him,  you  might 
have  shared  in  the  honour  of  the  Pretender's  confidence — 
with  him,  you  might  have  preserved  the  integrity  of  your 
character,  and  England,  I  think,  might  have  spared  you 
without  regret. — Your  friends  will  say,  perhaps,  that  al- 
though you  deserted  the  fortune  of  your  liege  Lord,  you 
have  adhered  firmly  to  the  principles  which  drove  his  father 
from  the  throne; — that  without  openly  supporting  the  per- 

*  This  man  was  always  a  rank  Jacobite.  Lord  Ravensworth  produced 
the  most  satisfactory  evidence  of  his  having  frequently  drank  the  Pre- 
tender's health  upon  his  knees.  Author. 

Lord  Mansfield  was  descended  from  the  Stormont  family,  who  as  they 
owed  their  fortune  and  dignity  to  James  I.  evinced  a  steady  attachment 
to  his  hereditary  successors.  Lord  Mansfield  and  his  brother,  in  their  out- 
set in  life,  were  patronised  by  Jacobites; — and  hence  the  one  became  the 
Pretender's  confidential  secretary,  and  the  other  was  chiefly  supported, 
when  a  student  in  the  Temple,  by  a  Mr.  Vernon,  a  rich  Jacobite  citizen. 
It  was  in  the  house  of  this  gentleman  that  the  toast  here  referred  to  was 
frequently  drunk. 

The  young  lawyer,  however,  soon  found  that  his  principles  would  not 
comport  with  his  interest;  and  on  this  account,  deserted  the  House  of 
Stuart,  and  became  professedly  a  staunch  adherent  to  that  of  Hanover; 
under  which  character  he  was  soon  fortunate  enough  to  be  employed  in 
the  very  important  office  of  solicitor,  and  subsequently  attorney-general, 
and  was  on  the  death  of  Sir  Dudley  Ryder  in  1756,  promoted  to  be  chief 
justice  of  the  court  of  King's  Bench.  His  personal  and  family  attachment 
to  the  Stuarts  was  forgotten,  and  would  perhaps  have  never  been  revived, 
had  not  Liddel,  Lord  Ravensworth,  envious  of  the  confidence  reposed  in 
him,  sought  industriously  for  some  serious  accusation  against  him,  and 
hereby  obtained  a  knowledge  of  the  fact.  Ravensworth,  however,  did  not 
succeed  in  obtaining  Murray's  dismission.  Edit. 

■J-  Confidential  secretary  to  the  late  Pretender.  This  circumstance  con- 
I  *he  friendship  between  the  brothers. 


JUNIUS.  253 

son,  you  have  done  essential  service  to  the  cause,  and  con- 
soled yourself  for  the  loss  of  a  favourite  family,  by  reviving 
and  establishing  the  maxims  of  their  government.  This  is 
the  way,  in  which  a  Scotchman's  understanding  corrects  the 
error  of  his  heart. — My  Lord,  I  acknowledge  the  truth  of 
the  defence,  and  can  trace  it  through  all  your  conduct.  I  see 
through  your  whole  life,  one  uniform  plan  to  enlarge  the 
power  of  the  crown,  at  the  expense  of  the  liberty  of  the  sub- 
ject. To  this  object,  your  thoughts,  words  and  actions  have 
been  constantly  directed.  In  contempt  or  ignorance  of  the 
common  law  of  England,  you  have  made  it  your  study  to 
introduce  into  the  court,  where  you  preside,  maxims  of  ju- 
risprudence unknown  to  Englishmen.  The  Roman  code,  the 
law  of  nations,  and  the  opinion  of  foreign  civilians,  are  your 
perpetual  theme; — but  whoever  heard  you  mention  Magna 
Charta  or  the  Bill  of  Rights  with  approbation  or  respect? 
By  such  treacherous  arts,  the  noble  simplicity  and  free  spirit 
of  our  Saxon  laws  were  first  corrupted.  The  Norman  con- 
quest was  not  complete,  until  Norman  lawyers  had  introdu- 
ced their  laws,  and  reduced  slavery  to  a  system. — This  one 
leading  principle  directs  your  interpretation  of  the  laws,  and 
accounts  for  your  treatment  of  juries.  It  is  not  in  political 
questions  only  (for  there  the  courtier  might  be  forgiven)  but 
let  the  cause  be  what  it  may,  your  understanding  is  equally 
on  the  rack,  either  to  contract  the  power  of  the  jury,  or  to 
mislead  their  judgment.  For  the  truth  of  this  assertion,  I 
appeal  to  the  doctrine  you  delivered  in  Lord  Grosvenor's 
cause.  An  action  for  criminal  conversation  being  brought  by 
a  peer  against  a  prince  of  the  blood*,  you  were  daring 
enough  to  tell  the  jury  that,  in  fixing  the  damages,  they  were 
to  pay  no  regard  to  the  quality  or  fortune  of  the  parties; — 

*  The  action  was  brought  by  Lord  Grosvenor  against  the  Duke  of  Cum 
berland,  for  criminal  conversation  with  Lady  Grosvenor;  and  the  cause  in 
which  Lord  Mansfield  delivered  the  opinion  here  charged  to  him,  was 
tried  before  his  Lordship  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  July  5,  1770.  The 
damages  were  laid  at  one  hundred  thousand  pounds:  the  verdict  was  for 
ten  thousand  pounds.  The  doctrine  here  justly  objected  against  by  Junius, 
has  since  been  relinquished  in  our  courts  of  justice,  and  his  own  substitu 
ted  in  its  stead.  Edit. 


254  LETTERS  OF 

that  it  was  a  trial  between  A.  and  B. — that  they  were  to  con- 
sider the  offence  in  a  moral  light  only,  and  give  no  greater 
damages  to  a  peer  of  the  realm,  than  to  the  meanest  mecha- 
nic. I  shall  not  attempt  to  refute  a  doctrine,  which,  if  it  was 
meant  for  law,  carries  falsehood  and  absurdity  upon  the  face 
of  it;  but,  if  it  was  meant  for  a  declaration  of  your  political 
creed,  is  clear  and  consistent.  Under  an  arbitrary  govern- 
ment, all  ranks  and  distinctions  are  confounded.  The  honour 
of  a  nobleman  is  no  more  considered  than  the  reputation  of 
a  peasant,  for  with  different  liveries,  they  are  equally  slaves. 
Even  in  matters  of  private  property,  we  see  the  same  bias 
and  inclination  to  depart  from  the  decisions  of  your  prede- 
cessors*, which  you  certainly  ought  to  receive  as  evidence 
of  the  common  law.  Instead  of  those  certain,  positive  rules, 
by  which  the  judgment  of  a  court  of  law  should  invariably 
be  determined,  you  have  fondly  introduced  your  own  unset- 
tled notions  of  equity  and  substantial  justice.  Decisions 
given  upon  such  principles  do  not  alarm  the  public  so  much 
as  they  ought,  because  the  consequence  and  tendency  of  each 
particular  instance,  is  not  observed  or  regarded.  In  the  mean 
time  the  practice  gains  ground;  the  court  of  King's  Bench 
becomes  a  court  of  equity,  and  the  judge,  instead  of  consult- 
ing strictly  the  law  of  the  land,  refers  only  to  the  wisdom  of 
the  court,  and  to  the  purity  of  his  own  conscience.  The  name 
of  Mr.  Justice  Yates,  will  naturally  revive  in  your  mind 
some  of  those  emotions  of  fear  and  detestation,  with  which 
you  always  beheld  himf.   That  great  lawyer,  that  honest 

*  See  an  instance  of  the  kind  alluded  to  in  Private  Letter,  note  No.  2. 

■}•  Judge  Yates  was  now  just  dead.  His  juridical  opinions  being  often  at 
variance  with  those  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench,  he  chose, 
though  senior  puisne  judge  of  that  court,  to  take  the  junior  judgeship  of 
the  Common  Pleas,  then  vacant,  on  the  promotion  of  the  other  judges,  in 
consequence  of  the  resignation  of  Sir  Edward  dive.  This  removal  took 
place  May  4,  1770,  and  Sir  Joseph  Yates  died  on  the  succeeding  7th  of 
June. 

The  following  anecdote,  of  the  truth  of  which  there  is  little  doubt,  is 
worthy  of  record  and  does  him  immortal  honour.  In  a  debate  which  took 
place  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Dec.  6,  1770,  on  Mr.  Serjeant  Glynn's 
motion,  as  noticed  in  p.  13  of  this  vol.  Mr.  Alderman  Townsend,  after  othef 

arguments 


JUNIUS.  255 

man,  saw  your  whole  conduct  in  the  light  that  I  do.  After 
years  of  ineffectual  resistance  to  the  pernicious  principles  in- 
tr  uced  by  your  Lordship,  and  uniformly  supported  by 
yc  ur  humble  friends  upon  the  bench,  he  determined  to  quit 
a  court,  whose  proceedings  and  decisions  he  could  neither 
assent  to  with  honour,  nor  oppose  with  success. 

The  injustice  done  to  an  Individual  is  sometimes  of  ser- 
vice to  the  public*.  Facts  are  apt  to  alarm  us  more  than  the 
most  dangerous  principles.  The  sufferings  and  firmness  of 
a  Printer  have  roused  the  public  attention.  You  knew  and 
felt  that  your  conduct  would  not  bear  a  parliamentary  inquiry, 

arguments  urged  in  support  of  it,  said,  "  I  am  afraid  then  that  there  is  too 
great  a  vicinity  between  Westminster-hall  and  St.  James's.  I  suspect,  and 
the  people  suspect,  that  their  correspondence  is  too  close  and  intimate. 
But  why  do  I  say  it  is  suspected?  it  is  a  known,  avowed  fact  A  late  judge, 
equally  remarkable  for  his  knowledge  and  integrity,  was  tampered  with 
by  administration.  He  was  solicited  to  favour  the  crown  in  certain  trials, 
which  were  ^ien  depending  between  it  and  the  subject.  I  hear  some  de- 
siring me  to  name  the  judge,  but  there  is  no  necessity  for  it.  The  fact  is 
known  to  several  members  of  this  house,  and  if  I  do  not  speak  truth,  let 
those  who  can,  contradict  me.  I  call  upon  them  to  rise,  that  the  public 
may  not  be  abused — but  all  are  silent,  and  can  as  little  invalidate  what  I 
have  said  as  what  I  am  going  to  say.  This  great,  this  honest  judge,  being 
thus  solicited  in  vain,  what  was  now  to  be  done?  what  was  the  last  re- 
source of  baffled  injustice?  That  was  learned  from  a  short  conversation 
which  passed  between  him  and  some  friends  a  little  before  his  death.  The 
last  and  most  powerful  engine  was  applied.  A  letter  was  sent  him  directly 
from  a  Great  Personage;  but  as  he  suspected  it  to  contain  something  dis- 
honourable, he  sent  it  back  unopened.  Is  not  this  a  subject  that  deserves 
enquiry?  Ought  we  not  to  trace  out  the  adviser  of  such  a  daring  step,  and 
upon  proper  conviction  bring  him  to  the  block?  The  excellent  person  who 
was  thus  tempted  to  disgrace  and  perjure  himself,  and  to  betray  and  ruin 
his  country,  could  not  die  in  peace,  till  he  had  disclosed  this  scene  of  ini- 
quity, and  warned  his  fellow  citizens  of  their  danger."  The  above  extract 
from  Mr.  Alderman  Townsend's  speech  is  taken  from  a  report  of  the  de- 
bate published  in  the  year  1771,  by  the  late  celebrated  and  much  respect- 
ed Mr.  W.  Woodfall,  who  added  to  the  speech  itself  the  following  N.B. 
"  Sir  Joseph  Yates,  as  will  appear  in  a  succeeding  speech,  was  the  judge 
meant  by  the  Alderman.  When  the  letter  from  a  Great  Personage  was 
mentioned,  Lord  North,  and  the  rest  of  the  Treasury-bench  stared  at  one 
another,  but  did  not  utter  a  single  sentence  by  way  of  contradiction."  Edit. 
*  The  oppression  of  an  obscure  individual  gave  birth  to  the  famous  Ha- 
beas Corpus  Act  of  31  Car.  II.  which  is  frequently  considered  as  another 
Magna  Charta  of  the  kingdom.     Blackstane,  3.  135. 


256  LETTERS  OF 

and  you  hoped  to  escape  rt  by  the  meanest,  the  basest  sacri- 
fice of  dignity  and  consistency,  that  ever  was  made  by  a 
great  magistrate.  Where  was  your  firmness,  where  was  that 
vindictive  spirit,  of  which  we  have  seen  so  many  examples, 
when  a  man,  so  inconsiderable  as  Bingley,  could  force  you 
to  confess,  in  the  face  of  this  country,  that,  for  two  years  to- 
gether, you  had  illegally  deprived  an  English  subject  of  his 
liberty,  and  that  he  had  triumphed  over  you  at  last?  Yet  I 
own,  my  Lord,  that  yours  is  not  an  uncommon  character. 
Women,  and  men  like  women,  are  timid,  vindictive  and  ir- 
resolute. Their  passions  counteract  each  other,  and  make 
the  same  creature,  at  one  moment  hateful,  at  another  con- 
temptible. I  fancy,  my  Lord,  some  time  will  elapse  before 
you  venture  to  commit  another  Englishman  for  refusing  to 
answer  interrogatories*. 

*  "  Bingley  was  committed  for  contempt  in  not  submitting  to  be  exa- 
mined. He  lay  in  prison  two  years,  until  the  Crown  thought  the  matter 
might  occasion  some  serious  complaint,  and  therefore  he  was  let  out,  in 
the  same  contumelious  state  he  had  been  put  in,  with  all  his  sins  about  him, 
unanointed  and  unannealed. — There  was  much  coquetry  between  the  Court 
and  the  Attorney  General,  about  who  should  undergo  the  ridicule  of  let- 
ting him  escape." —  Vide  another  Letter  to  Almon, p.  189.  Author. 

To  give  the  reader  a  better  idea  of  the  fact  alluded  to,  we  shall  continue 
the  quotation  a  few  lines  farther  than  the  author,  at  the  period  in  which 
he  wrote,  thought  necessary. 

"  Mr.  Attorney,  tried  to  put  it  off  upon  the  court,  by  telling  them,  upon 
his  being  brought  up,  he  had  nothing  to  pray  against  him.  The  sagacious 
and  noble  Lord  who  presided,  smelling  a  rat,  or  knowing  there  was  one, 
was  not  to  be  so  taken  in,  and  therefore  asked,  what  it  was  Mr.  Attorney 
had  to  ask  of  the  court;  to  which  Mr.  Attorney  said  again,  he  had  merely 
informed  them,  that  the  defendant  Bingley  was  there,  and  that  he  should 
move  nothing  farther  about  him.  After  a  little  pause  and  a  recovery  from 
the  inertness  of  this  answer,  the  chief  at  last  let  him  know,  that  if  he  moved 
nothing,  nothing  could  be  done,  and  every  thing  would  remain  as  it  was, 
the  consequence  of  which  was,  that  the  defendant  would  still  be  in  cus- 
tody; the  court  never  acted  from  itself,  but  upon  motion  from  without.  Mr. 
Attorney,  finding  it  was  in  vain  to  be  wasting  more  time  about  who  should 
Jo  what  was  agreed  to  be  done,  in  a  very  manly  manner,  took  the  thing 
upon  himself,  and  said,  then  I  move  that  Ik-  may  be  discharged.  And  thus 
ended,  in  this  pitiful  manner,  this  paltry  business;  and  yet,  perhaps  it  was, 
ull  things  considered,  the  best  way  in  which  it  could  be  put  an  end  to,  dis- 
graceful as  the  mude  must  be,  to  the  real  as  well  as  the  apparent  prosecu- 
tor 


JUNIUS.  257 

The  doctrine  you  have  constantly  delivered,  in  cases  of  libel, 
is  another  powerful  evidence  of  a  settled  plan  to  contract  the 
legal  power  of  juries,  and  to  draw  questions,  inseparable 
from  fact,  within  the  arbitriurn  of  the  court.  Here,  my  Lord, 
you  have  fortune  of  your  side.  When  you  invade  the  pro- 
vince of  the  jury  in  matter  of  libel,  you,  in  effect,  attack  the 
liberty  of  the  press,  and  with  a  single  stroke,  wound  two  of 
your  greatest  enemies. — In  some  instances  you  have  suc- 
ceeded, because  jurymen  are  too  often  ignorant  of  their  own 
rights,  and  too  apt  to  be  awed  by  the  authority  of  a  chief  jus- 
tice. In  other  criminal  prosecutions,  the  malice  of  the  design 
is  confessedly  as  much  the  subject  of  consideration  to  a  jury, 
as  the  certainty  of  the  fact.  If  a  different  doctrine  prevails 
in  the  case  of  libels,  why  should  it  not  extend  to  all  criminal 
cases? — Why  not  to  capital  offences?  I  see  no  reason  (and  I 
dare  say  you  will  agree  with  me  that  there  is  no  good  one)  why 
the  life  of  the  subject  should  be  better  protected  against  you, 
than  his  liberty  or  property.  Why  should  you  enjoy  the  full 
power  of  pillory,  fine,  and  imprisonment,  and  not  be  indulged 
with  hanging  or  transportation?  With  your  Lordship's  fertile 
genius  and  merciful  disposition,  I  can  conceive  such  an  ex- 
ercise of  the  power  you  have,  as  could  hardly  be  aggravated 
by  that  which  you  have  not*. 

tor  of  it,  and  letdown  as  government  could  not  but  be  by  such  a  desertion 
of  its  object.  The  only  gainer,  was  a  shabby  pamphlet-seller  or  stationer, 
who  fattened  and  throve  upon  the  reputation  of  patriotism,  by  being  in 
prison  under  the  pretence  of  it,  and  who  wished  for  little  more  than  to  be 
translated  from  the  King's  bench  prison  to  Newgate,  that  is,  from  the  bo- 
rough to  the  city,  or  from  the  rear  of  the  army,  to  the  head  quarters,  and 
was  pretty  indifferent  about  his  personal  liberty,  provided  his  press  moved 
freely,  and  found  a  large  vent  for  his  productions."  For  a  farther  account 
of  this  transaction  see  note,  p.  63  of  this  vol.     Edit. 

*  The  declaratory  act  upon  this  subject  brought  forwards  and  carried 
through  the  legislature  by  the  indefatigable  exertions  of  the  late  Mr.  Fox, 
and  which,  were  there  no  other  monument  to  immortalize  his  memory, 
would  alone  be  sufficient  to  transmit  it  to  the  latest  posterity,  has  at  length 
completely  settled  this  point,  and  given  to  the  jury  beyond  all  controversy 
on  the  part  of  the  court,  the  full  power  of  judging  of  the  law  as  well  as  of 
the  fact;  of  the  intention  as  well  as  of  the  exterior  act. 

The  full  value  of  this  interference  of  Mr.  Fox's  can  only  be  known  by 
comparing  it  with  the  result  of  a  similar  attempt  made  by  Mr.  Dowdes- 

VOL.  I.  2  K  well 


258  LETTERS  OF 

But,  my  Lord,  since  you  have  laboured,  (and  not  unsuc- 
cessfully) to  destroy  the  substance  of  the  trial,  why  should 

well  in  1771,  the  following-  account  of  which  is  extracted  from  the  Puhlic 
Advertiser  for  March  13. 

"  The  following'  is  the  motion  mad?  by  Mr.  Dowdeswell  in  a  great  as- 
sembly and  rejected:  '  Whereas  doubts  and  controversies  have  arisen  at 
various  times  concerning  the  right  of  jurors  to  try  the  whole  matter  laid 
in  indictments  and  informations  for  seditious  and  other  libels;  and  whereas 
trials  by  juries  would  be  of  none  or  imperfect  effect  if  the  jurors  were  not 
held  to  be  competent  to  try  the  whole  matter  aforesaid,  for  settling  and 
clearing  such  doubts  and  controversies,  and  for  securing  to  the  subject  the 
effectual  and  complete  benefit  of  trial  by  juries  in  such  indictments  and  in- 
formations: Be  it  enacted,  &.c.  That  jurors  duly  impannelled  and  sworn 
to  try  the  issue  between  the  king  and  the  defendant  upon  any  indictment 
or  information  for  a  seditious  libel,  or  a  libel  under  any  other  denomination 
or  description,  shall  be  held  and  reputed  competent  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, in  law  and  in  right,  to  try  every  part  of  the  matter  laid  or  charged 
in  said  indictment  or  information,  comprehending  the  criminal  intention 
of  the  defendant  and  the  civil  tendency  of  the  libel  charged,  as  well  as  the 
mere  fact  of  the  publication  thereof,  and  the  application  by  inuendo  of 
blanks,  initial  letters,  pictures  and  other  devices;  any  opinion,  question, 
ambiguity,  or  doubt,  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.' 

"  Mr.  Dowdeswell  observed  that  as  doubts  had  arose  in  the  people's 
minds  respecting  the  power  of  juries  in  the  cases  of  libels;  to  remove 
those  doubts,  he  should  propose  an  Enacting  Bill,  to  give  to  juries  a  power 
to  try  the  whole  matter  in  issue;  that  is,  to  determine  whether  the  paper 
or  book  charged  with  being  a  libel  be  so  or  not:  but  that  if  gentlemen 
liked  a  Declaratory  Bill  better,  he  had  left  the  matter  open.  He  paid 
some  compliments  to  Lord  Mansfield,  and  read  his  Enacting  Bill.  Mr. 
Burke  spoke  in  support  of  the  Enacting  Bill,  and  in  praise  of  Lord  Mans- 
field. He  said,  if  the  noble  judge  had  erred,  he  had  erred  with  great  law 
authorities — in  great  and  respectable  company. 

"  Mr.  James  Grenville,  jun.  spoke  for  a  declaratory  bill;  as  did  Mr. 
Calcraft,  Mr.  Aubrey,  and  Colonel  Barre;  Sir  George  Saville,  Mr.  T. 
Townsend,  Mr.  R.  H.  Coxe,  and  Mr.  Dunning  spoke  in  favour  of  the 
motion. 

These  last  gentlemen  severally  urged  the  necessity  of  settling  this 
matter  beyond  doubt  or  controversy;  because  it  did  appear,  from  a  late 
paper  given  by  Lord  Mansfield  to  the  House  of  Lords,  that  it  was  the 
opinion  of  all  the  judges  of  the  King's  Bench,  that  the  jury  should  deter- 
mine only  the  fact,  and  the  law  should  be  left  to  the  judges;  but  this 
was  not  only  the  opinion  of  the  judges,  but  that,  in  a  former  debate,  all 
the  ministerial  lawyers  and  leaders  had  supported  the  same;  that  the  doc- 
trine was  dangerous  in  the  highest  degree,  as  encroaching  on  the  palla- 
dium 


JUNIUS.  259 

you  suffer  the  form  of  the  verdict  to  remain?  Why  force 
twelve  honest  men,  in  palpable  violation  of  their  oaths,  to 

dium  of  English  liberty,  the  trial  by  jury,  as  leaving1  the  essence  of  the 
cause  to  the  determination  of  interested  men,  the  judges;  that  this  doctrine, 
now  adopted  by  the  judges,  was  not  of  older  date  than  the  reign  of  Queen 
Anne.  In  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  there  was  a  remarkable  case,  which 
shewed  the  contrary  to  be  the  opinion  then  (an  indictment  of  a  grand  jury 
at  Lincoln,  which  found  a  true  Bill  as  to  the  fact,  but  no  true  bill  as  to 
the  malice,  &c.  This  the  judges,  at  that  time,  determined  to  be  no  true 
Bill;  by  which  they  determined,  that  the  jury  were  judges  of  the  law,  as 
well  as  the  fact)  that  in  the  famous  case  of  the  bishops,  in  the  reign  of 
James  the  Second,  the  judges,  though  made  for  the  purpose,  unanimously 
concurred  in  directing  the  jury  to  judge  of  the  whole  of  the  information, 
as  well  the  laic  as  the  fact;  that  whenever  the  jury  had  thought  proper  to 
dispute  the  affair  with  the  judges,  the  jury  had  always  got  the  better; 
and  that  a  law  establishing  this  doctrine  would  put  an  end  to  this  dis- 
pute. 

"  The  ministry  did  not  say  one  single  word  in  the  dispute,  but  the  de- 
bate was  taken  up  by  the  gentlemen  of  the  minority.  Capt.  Phipps  spoke 
very  well,  and  with  great  spirit.  Sir  William  Meredith  spoke  extremely 
well;  Mr.  James  Grenville,  jun.  spoke  inimitably  well  for  his  first  essay; 
Mr.  Popham  and  others.  There  was  not  one  of  them  who  did  not  establish 
the  doctrine  that  juries  are  judges  of  law  as  well  as  fact,  but  disapproved 
of  the  present  motion  for  various  reasons. 

"That  the  doctrine,  being  established  on  the  foundation  of  the  com- 
mon law,  did  not  require  the  assistance  of  the  statute  law  to  defend  it. 
That  if  a  bill  of  this  nature  was  brought  into  the  house,  and  afterwards 
rejected,  it  might  have  very  bad  effects  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  as  it 
might  be  supposed  that  the  doctrine  was  doubtful  That  an  enacting  law 
would  make  it  appear,  that  this  was  a  novel  doctrine,  which  few  in  the 
house  could  concur  in;  and  that  if  made  declaratory  only,  the  judges  who 
had  acted  on  principles  contrary  to  such  declaration,  would  be  liable  to 
condign  punishment,  which  the  friends  of  the  motion  did  not  seem  to 
wish. 

"  For  these  reasons  the  numbers  were,  218  for  adjourning,  72  against 

it." 

Mr.  Fox  himself  was  not  fortunate  in  his  first  attempt:  but  he  deter- 
mined to  persevere  till  he  had  succeeded.  He  lost  his  bill  in  the  Upper 
House  in  1791,  but  accomplished  his  purpose  in  the  spring  of  the  ensuing 
year,  notwithstanding  the  joint  opposition  of  the  law  lords,  Thurlow, 
Kenyon,  and  Bathurst.  The  venerable  Camden  supported  the  bill  with  an 
animation  and  energy  well  worthy  of  his  own  honest  heart,  and  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  principle  it  endeavoured  to  establish,  and  may  be  said  to 
have  finished  the  glorious  career  of  his  political  life,  with  the  vote  he 

£rav". 


260  LETTERS  Or 

pronounce  their  fellow-subject  a  guilty  man,  when,  almost 
at  the  same  moment,  you  forbid  their  enquiring  into  the 
only  circumstance,  which  in  the  eye  of  law  and  reason,  con- 
stitutes guilt — the  malignity  or  innocence  of  his  intentions? 
— But  I  understand  your  Lordship. — If  you  could  succeed 
in  making  the  trial  by  jury  useless  and  ridiculous,  you  might 
then  with  greater  safety  introduce  a  bill  into  parliament  for 
enlarging  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  and  extending  your 
favourite  trial  by  interrogatories  to  every  question,  in  which 
the  life  or  liberty  of  an  Englishman  is  concerned.* 

Your  charge  to  the  jury,  in  the  prosecution  against  Almon 
and  Woodfall,  contradicts  the  highest  legal  authorities,  as 
well  as  the  plainest  dictates  of  reasonj.  In  Miller's  cause, 
and  still  more  expressly  in  that  of  Baldwin:}:,  you  have  pro- 
ceeded a  step  farther,  and  grossly  contradicted  yourself. — 
Ytfu  may  know  perhaps,  though  I  do  not  mean  to  insult  you 
by  an  appeal  to  your  experience,  that  the  language  of  truth 
is  uniform  and  consistent.  To  depart  from  it  safely,  requires 
memory  and  discretion.  In  the  two  last  trials,  your  charge 
to  the  jury  began,  as  usual,  with  assuring  them  that  they  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  law, — that  they  were  to  find  the  bare 
fact,  and  not  concern  themselves  about  the  legal  inferences 
drawn  from  it,  or  the  degree  of  the  defendant's  guilt. — Thus 
far  you  were  consistent  with  your  former  practice. — But 

gave  on  this  illustrious  occasion;  seldom  possessing'  sufficient  health  to  at- 
tend parliament  afterwards,  and  expiring  on  April  18,  1794.  Edit. 

*  The  philosophical  poet  doth  notably  describe  the  damnable  and  damn- 
ed proceedings  of  the  Judge  of  Hell 

"  Gnossius  haec  Rhadamanthus  habet  durissima  regna, 
Castigatque,  auditque  dolos,  subigitque  fateri." 

First  he  punisheth,  and  then  he  heareth;  and  lastly  compelleth  to  confess., 
and  makes  and  mars  laws  at  his  pleasure;  like  as  the  Centurion,  in  the 
holy  history  did  to  St.  Paul,  for  the  text  saith,  "  Centurio  apprehendi  Pau- 
lum  jussit,  et  se  catenis  ligari,  et  tunc  interrocabat,  quis  fuisset,  et 
quid  fecisset;"  but  good  Judges  and  Justices  abhor  these  courses.  Coke  2. 
Inst.  55. 

f  See  this  subject  farther  enlarged  upon  in  the  preface,  p.  10.  Edit. 

\  All  the  persons  here  named  were  prosecuted  for  publishing  the  Let- 
ter to  the  King,  No.  xxxv.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  261 

how  will  you  account  for  the  conclusion?  You  told  the  jury 
that,  "  if,  after  all,  they  would  take  upon  themselves  to  de- 
termine the  law,  they  might  do  it,  but  they  must  be  very 
sure  that  they  determined  according  to  law,  for  it  touched 
their  consciences,  and  they  acted  at  their  peril."— If  I  un- 
derstand your  first  proposition,  you  meant  to  affirm,  that  the 
jury  were  not  competent  judges  of  the  law  in  the  criminal 
case  of  a  libel — that  it  did  not  fall  within  their  jurisdiction; 
and  that,  with  respect  to  them,  the  malice  or  innocence  of  the 
defendant's  intentions  would  be  a  question  coram  non  judice. 
But  the  second  proposition  clears  away  your  own  difficulties, 
and  restores  the  jury  to  all  their  judicial  capacities.  You 
make  the  competence  of  the  court  to  depend  upon  the  legali- 
ty of  the  decision*.  In  the  first  instance  you  deny  the  power 
absolutely.  In  the  second,  you  admit  the  power,  provided 
it  be  legally  exercised.  Now,  my  Lord,  without  pretending 
to  reconcile  the  distinctions  of  Westminster-hall  with  the 
simple  information  of  common-sense,  or  the  integrity  of  fair 
argument,  I  shall  be  understood  by  your  Lordship,  when  I 
assert  that,  if  a  jury  or  any  other  court  of  judicature  (for  ju- 
rors are  judges)  have  no  right  to  entertain  a  cause,  or  ques- 
tion of  law,  it  signifies  nothing  whether  their  decision  be  or 
be  not  according  to  law.  Their  decision  is  in  itself  a  mere 
nullity:  the  parties  are  not  bound  to  submit  to  it;  and,  if  the 
jury  run  any  risque  of  punishment,  it  is  not  for  pronouncing 
a  corrupt  or  illegal  verdict,  but  for  the  illegality  of  med- 
dling with  a  point,  on  which  they  have  no  legal  authority  to 
decidef. 

*  Directly  the  reverse  of  the  doctrine  he  constantly  maintained  in  the 
House  of  Lords  and  elsewhere,  upon  the  decision  of  the  Middlesex  elec- 
tion. He  invariably  asserted  that  the  decision  must  be  legal,  because  the 
court  was  competent;  and  never  could  be  prevailed  on  to  enter  farther  into 
the  question. 

-J- These  iniquitous  prosecutions  cost  the  best  of  princes  six  thousand 
pounds,  and  ended  in  the  total  defeat  and  disgrace  of  the  prosecutors.  In 
the  course  of  one  of  them  Judge  Aston  had  the  unparalleled  impudence  to 
tell  Mr.  Morris  (a  gentleman  of  unquestionable  honour  and  integrity,  and 
who  was  then  giving  his  evidence  on  oath,)  that  he  should  pav  very  little 
■ erard  to  any  affidavit  he  should  make. 


262  LETTERS  OF 

I  cannot  quit  this  subject  without  reminding  your  Lord- 
ship of  the  name  of  Mr.  Benson.  Without  offering  any  legal 
objection,  you  ordered  a  special  juryman  to  be  set  aside  in  a 
cause,  where  the  King  was  prosecutor.  The  novelty  of  the 
fact  required  explanation.  Will  you  condescend  to  tell  the 
world  by  what  law  or  custom  you  were  authorized  to 
make  a  peremptory  challenge  of  a  juryman?  The  parties  in- 
deed have  this  power,  and  perhaps  your  Lordship,  having 
accustomed  yourself  to  unite  the  characters  of  judge  and 
party,  may  claim  it  in  virtue  of  the  new  capacity  you  have 
assumed,  and  profit  by  your  own  wrong.  The  time,  within 
which  you  might  have  been  punished  for  this  daring  at- 
tempt to  pack  a  jury,  is,  I  fear,  elapsed;  but  no  length  of 
time  shall  erase  the  record  of  it*. 

The  mischiefs  you  have  done  this  country,  are  not  con- 
fined to  your  interpretation  of  the  laws.  You  are  a  minister, 
my  Lord,  and,  as  such,  have  long  been  consulted.  Let  us 
candidly  examine  what  use  you  have  made  of  your  ministe- 
rial influence.   I  will  not  descend  to  little  matters,  but  come 
at  once  to  those  important  points,  on  which  your  resolution 
was  waited  for,  on  which  the  expectation  of  your  opinion 
kept  a  great  part  of  the  nation  in  suspence. — A  constitu- 
tional question  arises  upon  a  declaration  of  the  law  of  par- 
liament, by  which  the  freedom  of  election,  and  the  birth- 
right of  the  subject  were  supposed  to  have  been  invaded. — 
The  King's  servants  are  accused  of  violating  the  constitu- 
tion.— The  nation  is  in  a  ferment. — The  ablest  men  of  all 
parties  engage  in  the  question,  and  exert  their  utmost  abili- 
ties in  the  discussion  of  it. — What  part  has  the  honest  Lord 
Mansfield  acted?  As  an  eminent  judge  of  the  law,  his  opi- 
nion would  have  been  respected. — As  a  peer,  he  had  a  right 
to  demand  an  audience  of  his  Sovereign,  and  inform  him 
that  his  ministers  were  pursuing  unconstitutional  measures.— 
Upon  other  occasions,  my  Lord,  you  have  no  difficulty  in 
finding  your  way  into  the  closet.  The  pretended  neutrality 
of  belonging  to  no  party,  will  not  save  your  reputation.  In 

*  See  this  circumstance  farther  explained  in  Letters  lxi.  and  lxiii. 
— Edit. 


JUNIUS.  263 

questions  merely  political,  an  honest  man  may  stand  neuter. 
But  the  laws  and  constitution  are  the  general  property  of 
the  subject; — not  to  defend  is  to  relinquish; — and  who  is 
there  so  senseless  as  to  renounce  his  share  in  a  common 
benefit,  unless  he  hopes  to  profit  by  a  new  division  of  the 
spoil.   As  a  lord  of  parliament,  ycu  were  repeatedly  called 
upon  to  condemn  or  defend  the  new  law  declared  by  the 
House  of  Commons.  You  affected  to  have   scruples,  and 
every  expedient    was    attempted  to  remove    them. — The 
question  was  proposed  and  urged  to  you  in  a  thousand  dif- 
ferent shapes. — Your  prudence  still  supplied  you  with  eva- 
sion;— your  resolution  was  invincible.  For  my  own  part,  I 
am  not  anxious  to  penetrate  this  solemn  secret.   I  care  not  to 
whose  wisdom  it  is  entrusted,  nor  how  soon  you  carry  it 
with  you  to  your  grave*.  You  have  betrayed  your  opinion 
by  the  very  care  you  have  taken  to  conceal  it.  It  is  not  from 
Lord  Mansfield  that  we  expect  any  reserve  in  declaring  his 
real  sentiments  in  favour  of  government,  or  in  opposition  to 
the  people;  nor  is  it  difficult  to  account  for  the  motions  of  a 
timid,  dishonest  heart,  which  neither  has  virtue  enough  to 
acknowledge  truth,  nor  courage  to  contradict  it. — Yet  you 
continue  to  support  an  administration  which  you  know  is 
universally  odious,  and  which,  on  some  occasions,  you  your- 
self speak  of  with  contempt.  You  would  fain  be  thought  to 
take  no  share  in  government,  while,  in  reality,  you  are  the 
main  spring  of  the  machine. — Here  too  we  trace  the  little, 
prudential  policy  of  a  Scotchman. — Instead  of  acting  that 
open,  generous  part,  which  becomes  your  rank  and  station, 
you  meanly  skulk  into  the  closet,  and  give  your  Sovereign 
such  advice,  as  you  have  not  spirit  to  avow  or  defend.  You 
secretly  engross  the  power,  while  you  decline  the  title  of 
minister;  and  though  you  dare  not  be  Chancellor,  you  know 
how  to  secure  the  emoluments  of  the  office.- — Are  the  seals 
to  be  for  ever  in  commission,  that  you  may  enjoy  five  thou- 


*  He  said  in  the  House  of  Lords,  that  he  believed  he  should  carry  his 
opinion  with  him  to  the  grave.  It  was  afterwards  reported  that  he  had  in- 
trusted it,  in  special  confidence,  to  the  ingenious  Duke  of  Cumberland. 


264  LETTERS  OF 

sand  pounds  a  year? — I  beg  pardon,  my  Lord*; — your  fears 
have  interposed  at  last,  and  forced  you  to  resign. — The 
odium  of  continuing  speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords,  upon 
such  terms,  was  too  formidable  to  be  resisted.  What  a  mul- 
titude of  bad  passions  are  forced  to  submit  to  a  constitu- 
tional infirmity!  But  though  you  have  relinquished  the 
salary,  you  still  assume  the  rights  of  a  minister. — Your  con- 
duct, it  seems,  must  be  defended  in  parliament. — For  what 
other  purpose  is  your  wretched  friend,  that  miserable  Ser- 
jeant, posted  to  the  House  of  Commons?  Is  it  in  the  abili- 
ties of  a  Mr.  Leigh  to  defend  the  great  Lord  Mansfield?— 
Or  is  he  only  the  punch  of  the  puppet-shew,  to  speak  as  he 
is  prompted,  by  the  chief  juggler  behind  the  curtainf? 

In  public  affairs,  my  Lord,  cunning,  let  it  be  ever  so  well 
wrought,  will  not  conduct  a  man  honourably  through  lifeL 
Like  bad  money,  it  may  be  current  for  a  time,  but  it  will 
soon  be  cried  down.  It  cannot  consist  with  a  liberal  spirit, 
though  it  be  sometimes  united  with  extraordinary  qualifica- 
tions. When  I  acknowledge  your  abilities,  you  may  believe 
I  am  sincere.  I  feel  for  human  nature,  when  I  see  a  man,  so 
gifted  as  you  are,  descend  to  such  vile  practice. — Yet  do 
not  suffer  your  vanity  to  console  you  too  soon.  Believe  me, 
my  good  Lord,  you  are  not  admired  in  the  same  degree,  in 
which  you  are  detested.  It  is  only  the  partiality  of  your 
friends,  that  balances  the  defects  of  your  heart  with  the  su- 
periority of  your  understanding.  No  learned  man,  even 
among  your  own  tribe,  thinks  you  qualified  to  preside  in  a 
court  of  common  law.  Yet  it  is  confessed  that,  under  Jus- 
tinian, you  might  have  made  an  incomparable  Prcetor. — It 

*  Upon  the  death  of  Charles  Yorke,  who,  as  has  been  already  observed, 
shot  himself  almost  immediately  on  his  appointment  to  the  Chancellorship, 
the  great  seal  was  held  in  commission  by  Sir  Sydney  Stafford  Smythe, 
the  Hon.  Henry  Bathurst,  and  Sir  Richard  Aston;  while  Lord  Mansfield 
was  appointed  speaker  of  the  Upper  House,  with  a  salary  as  above.  Lord 
\psley  succeeded  to  Mr.  Yorke,  and  of  course  took  the  office  of  speaker 
at  the  same  time  from  the  hands  of  Lord  Mansfield.  Edit. 

f  This  paragraph  gagged  poor  Leigh.  I  really  am  concerned  for  the 
man,  and  wish  it  were  possible  to  open  his  mouth. — He  is  a  very  pretty 
orator. 

\  See  Private  Letter,  No.  44.  Edit 


JUNIUS.  265 

is  remarkable  enough,  but  I  hope  not  ominous,  that  the 
laws  you  understand  best,  and  the  judges  you  affect  to  ad- 
mire most,  flourished  in  the  decline  of  a  great  empire,  and 
are  supposed  to  have  contributed  to  its  fall. 

Here,  my  Lord,  it  may  be  proper  for  us  to  pause  toge- 
ther.— It  is  not  for  my  own  sake  that  I  wish  you  to  consider 
the  delicacy  of  your  situation.  Beware  how  you  indulge  the 
first  emotions  of  your  resentment.  This  paper  is  delivered 
to  the  world,  and  cannot  be  recalled!  The  persecution  of  an 
innocent  printer  cannot  alter  facts,  nor  refute  arguments. — 
Do  not  furnish  me  with  farther  materials  against  yourself. — 
An  honest  man,  like  the  true  religion,  appeals  to  the  under- 
standing, or  modestly  confides  in  the  internal  evidence  of 
his  conscience.  The  impostor  employs  force  instead  of 
argument,  imposes  silence  where  he  cannot  convince,  and 
propagates  his  character  by  the  sword. 

JUNIUS. 


LETTER  XLII. 

TO    THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 
Sir,  January  30,  1771. 

If  we  recollect  in  what  manner  the  King's  friends  have 
been  constantly  employed,  we  shall  have  no  reason  to  be 
surprised  at  any  condition  of  disgrace,  to  which  the  once 
respected  name  of  Englishmen  may  be  degraded.  His  Ma- 
jesty has  no  cares,  but  such  as  concern  the  laws  and  consti- 
tution of  this  country.  In  his  Royal  breast  there  is  no  room 
left  for  resentment,  no  place  for  hostile  sentiments  against 
the  natural  enemies  of  his  crown.  The  system  of  govern- 
ment is  uniform. — Violence  and  oppression  at  home  can 
only  be  supported  by  treachery  and  submission  abroad. 
When  the  civil  rights  of  the  people  are  daringly  invaded  on 
one  side,  what  have  we  to  expect,  but  that  their  political 
rights  should  be  deserted  and  betrayed,  in  the  same  propor- 
tion, on  the  other?  The  plan  of  domestic  policy,  which  has 
been  invariably  pursued,  from  the  moment  of  his  present 

Vol.  I.  2  L 


266  LETTERS  OF 

Majesty's  accession,  engrosses  all  the  attention  of  his  ser- 
vants. They  know  that  the  security  of  their  places  depends 
upon  their  maintaining,  at  any  hazard,  the  secret  system  of 
the  closet.  A  foreign  war  might  embarrass,  an  unfavourable 
event  might  ruin  the  minister,  and  defeat  the  deep-laid 
scheme  of  policy,  to  which  he  and  his  associates  owe  their 
employments.  Rather  than  suffer  the  execution  of  that 
scheme  to  be  delayed  or  interrupted,  the  King  has  been  ad- 
vised to  make  a  public  surrender,  a  solemn  sacrifice,  in  the 
face  of  all  Europe,  not  only  of  the  interests  of  his  subjects, 
but  of  his  own  personal  reputation,  and  of  the  dignity  of  that 
crown,  which  his  predecessors  have  worn  with  honour. 
These  are  strong  terms,  Sir,  but  they  are  supported  by  fact 
and  argument. 

The  King  of  Great  Britain  had  been  for  some  years  in 
possession  of  an  island*,  to  which,  as  the  ministry  themselves 
have  repeatedly  asserted,  the  Spaniards  had  no  claim  of 
right.  The  importance  of  the  place  is  not  in  question.  If  it 
were,  a  better  judgment  might  be  formed  of  it  from  the  opi- 
nions of  Lord  Anson  and  Lord  Egmont,  and  from  the  anxiety 
of  the  Spaniards,  than  from  any  fallacious  insinuations  thrown 
out  by  men,  whose  interest  it  is  to  undervalue  that  property, 
which  they  are  determined  to  relinquish.  The  pretensions 
of  S:  ain  were  a  subject  of  negotiation  between  the  two 
courts.  They  had  been  discussed,  but  not  admitted.  The 
King  of  Spain,  in  these  circumstances,  bids  adieu  to  amica- 
ble negotiation,  and  appeals  directly  to  the  sword.  The  ex- 
pedition against  Port  Egmont  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
a  sudden  ill-concerted  enterprise.  It  seems  to  have  been  con- 
ducted not  only  with  the  usual  military  precautions,  but  in 
all  the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  war.  A  frigate  was  first 
employed  to  examine  the  strength  of  the  place.  A  message 
was  then  sent,  demanding  immediate  possession,  in  the  Ca- 
tholic King's  name,  and  ordering  our  people  to  depart.  At 
last  a  military  force  appears,  and  compels  the  garrison  to 

*  Falkland  or  the  Great  Malouinc  Island.  See  a  brief  statement  of  the 
whole  dispute  in  a  note  to  the  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  lxxxvui. — 
Edit. 


JUNIUS-  26,7 

surrender.  A  formal  capitulation  ensues,  and  his  Majesty's 
ship,  which  might  at  least  have  been  permitted  to  bring  home 
his  troops  immediately,  is  detained  in  port  twenty  days,  and 
her  rudder  forcibly  taken  away.  This  train  of  facts  carries 
no  appearance  of  the  rashness  or  violence  of  a  Spanish  go- 
vernor. On  the  contrary,  the  whole  plan  seems  to  have  been 
formed  and  executed,  in  consequence  of  deliberate  orders, 
and  a  regular  instruction  from  the  Spanish  court.  Mr.  Bu- 
carelli  is  not  a  pirate,  nor  has  he  been  treated  as  such  by 
those  who  employed  him.  I  feel  for  the  honour  of  a  gentle- 
man, when  I  affirm  that  our  King  owes  him  a  signal  repara- 
tion.— Where  will  the  humiliation  of  this  country  end!  A 
King  of  Great  Britain,  not  contented  with  placing  himself 
upon  a  level  with  a  Spanish  governor,  descends  so  low  as  to 
do  a  notorious  injustice  to  that  governor.  As  a  salvo  for  his 
own  reputation,  he  has  been  advised  to  traduce  the  character 
of  a  brave  officer,  and  to  treat  him  as  a  common  robber,  when 
he  knew  with  certainty  that  Mr.  Bucarelli  had  acted  in  obe- 
dience to  his  orders,  and  had  done  no  more  than  his  duty. 
Thus  it  happens  in  private  life,  with  a  man  who  has  no  spirit 
nor  sense  of  honour. — One  of  his  equals  orders  a  servant  to 
strike  him.—- Instead  of  returning  the  blow  to  the  master, 
his  courage  is  contented  with  throwing  an  aspersion,  equally 
false  and  public,  upon  the  character  of  the  servant. 

This  short  recapitulation  was  necessary  to  introduce  the 
consideration  of  his  Majesty's  speech,  of  13th  November, 
1770,  and  the  subsequent  measures  of  government.  The  ex- 
cessive caution,  with  which  the  speech  was  drawn  up,  had 
impressed  upon  me  an  early  conviction,  that  no  serious  re- 
sentment was  thought  of,  and  that  the  conclusion  of  the  bu- 
siness, whenever  it  happened,  must,  in  some  degree,  be 
dishonourable  to  England.  There  appears  through  the  whole 
speech,  a  guard  and  reserve  in  the  choice  of  expression,  which 
shews  how  careful  the  ministry  were  not  to  embarrass  their 
future  projects  by  any  firm  or  spirited  declaration  from  the 
throne.  When  all  hopes  of  peace  are  lost,  his  Majesty  tells 
his  parliament,  that  he  is  preparing, — not  for  barbarous  war, 


268  LETTERS  OE 

but  (with  all  his  mother's  softness*,)  for  a  different  situation. 
An  open  act  of  hostility,  authorized  by  the  Catholic  King, 
is  called  an  act  of  a  governor.  This  act,  to  avoid  the  men- 
tion of  a  regular  siege  and  surrender,  passes  under  the  pira- 
tical description  of  seizing-  by  force;  and  the  thing  taken, is 
described,  not  as  a  part  of  the  King's  territory  or  proper  do- 
minion, but  merely  as  a.  possession,  a  word  expressly  chosen 
in  contradistinction  to,  and  exclusion  of  the  idea  of  right, 
and  to  prepare  us  for  a  future  surrender  both  of  the  right 
and  of  the  possession.  Yet  this  speech,  Sir,  cautious  and 
equivocal  as  it  is,  cannot,  by  any  sophistry,  be  accommodated 
to  the  measures,  which  have  since  been  adopted.  It  seemed 
to  promise,  that  whatever  might  be  given  up  by  secret  stipu- 
lation, some  care  would  be  taken  to  save  appearances  to  the 
public.  The  event  shews  us,  that  to  depart,  in  the  minutest 
article,  from  the  nicety  and  strictness  of  punctilio,  is  as  dan- 
gerous to  national  honour,  as  to  female  virtue.  The  woman, 
who  admits  of  one  familiarity,  seldom  knows  where  to  stop, 
or  what  to  refuse;  and  when  the  counsels  of  a  great  country 
give  way  in  a  single  instance, — when  once  they  are  inclined 
to  submission,  every  step  accelerates  the  rapidity  of  the  de- 
scent. The  ministry  themselves,  when  they  framed  the 
speech,  did  not  foresee,  that  they  should  ever  accede  to  such 
an  accommodation,  as  they  have  since  advised  their  master 
to  accept  of. 

The  King  says,  The  honour  of  my  crown  and  the  rights  of 
my  people  are  deeply  affected.  The  Spaniard,  in  his  reply, 
says,  I  give  you  back  possession,  but  I  adhere  to  my  claim  of 
prior  right,  reserving  the  assertion  of  it  for  a  more  favourable 
opportunity. 

The  speech  says,  I  made  an  immediate  demand  of  satisfac- 
tion, and,  if  that  fails,  I  am  prepared  to  do  myself  justice. 
This  immediate  demand  must  have  been  sent  to  Madrid  on 
the  12th  of  September,  or  in  a  few  days  after.  It  was  certainly 
refused,  or  evaded,  and  the  King  has  not  done  himself  jus- 

*  Alluding  to  the  vulgar  report  of  the  clay,  that  the  Princess  Dowager 
of  Wales  had  interfered  in  the  Spanish  negotiation.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  269 

tice. — When  the  first  magistrate  speaks  to  the  nation,  some 
care  should  be  taken  of  his  apparent  veracity. 

The  speech  proceeds  to  say,  I  shall  not  discontinue  my  pre- 
parations until  I  have  received  prtper  reparation  for  the  in- 
jury. If  this  assurance  may  be  relied  on,  what  an  enormous 
expense  is  entailed,  sine  die,  upon  this  unhappy  country! 
Restitution  of  a  possession,  and  reparation  of  an  injury  are 
as  different  in  substance  as  they  are  in  language.  The  very 
act  of  restitution  may  contain,  as  in  this  instance  it  palpably 
does,  a  shameful  aggravation  of  the  injury.  A  man  of  spirit 
does  not  measure  the  degree  of  an  injury  by  the  mere  posi- 
tive damage  he  has  sustained.  He  considers  the  principle  on 
which  it  is  founded;  he  resents  the  superiority  asserted  over 
him;  and  rejects  with  indignation  the  claim  of  right,  which 
his  adversary  endeavours  to  establish,  and  would  force  him  to 
acknowledge. 

The  motives,  on  which  the  Catholic  King  makes  restitu- 
tion, are,  if  possible,  more  insolent  and  disgraceful  to  our 
Sovereign,  than  even  the  declaratory  condition  annexed  to 
it.  After  taking  four  months  to  consider,  whether  the  expe- 
dition was  undertaken  by  his  own  orders  or  not,  he  conde- 
scends to  disavow  the  enterprize,  and  to  restore  the  island, — 
not  from  any  regard  to  justice; — not  from  any  regard  he 
bears  to  his  Britannic  Majesty,  but  merely  from  the  persua- 
sion, in  which  he  is,  of  the  pacific  sentiments  of  the  King  of 
Great  Britain. — At  this  rate,  if  our  King  had  discovered 
the  spirit  of  a  man, — if  he  had  made  a  peremptory  demand  of 
satisfaction,  the  King  of  Spain  would  have  given  him  a  pe- 
remptory refusal.  But  why  this  unseasonable,  this  ridiculous 
mention  of  the  King  of  Great  Britain's  pacific  intentions? 
Have  they  ever  been  in  question?  Was  he  the  aggressor? 
Does  he  attack  foreign  powers  without  provocation?  Does 
he  even  resist,  when  he  is  insulted?  No,  Sir,  if  any  ideas  of 
strife  or  hostility  have  entered  his  royal  mind,  they  have  a 
very  different  direction.  The  enemies  of  England  have  no- 
thing to  fear  from  them. 

After  all,  Sir,  to  what  kind  of  disavowal  has  the  King  of 
Spain  at  last  consented?  Supposing  it  made  in  proper  time, 


270  LETTERS  OF 

it  should  have  been  accompanied  with  instant  restitution; 
and  if  Mr.  Bucarelli*  acted  without  orders,  he  deserved 
death.  Now,  Sir,  instead  of  immediate  restitution,  we  have 
a  four  months  negotiation,  and  the  officer,  whose  act  is  disa- 
vowed, returns  to  court,  and  is  loaded  with  honours. 

If  the  actual  situation  of  Europe  be  considered,  the 
treachery  of  the  King's  servants,  particularly  of  Lord  North, 
who  takes  the  whole  upon  himself,  will  appear  in  the  strong- 
est colours  of  aggravation.  Our  allies  were  masters  of  the 
Mediterranean.  The  King  of  France's  present  aversion  from 
war,  and  the  distraction  of  his  affairs  are  notorious.  He  is 
now  in  a  state  of  war  with  his  people.  In  vain  did  the  Catho- 
lic King  solicit  him  to  take  part  in  the  quarrel  against  us. 
His  finances  were  in  the  last  disorder,  and  it  was  probable 
that  his  troops  might  find  sufficient  employment  at  home. 
In  these  circumstances,  we  might  have  dictated  the  law  to 
Spain.  There  are  no  terms,  to  which  she  might  not  have 
been  compelled  to  submit.  At  the  worst,  a  war  with  Spain 
alone,  carries  the  fairest  promise  of  advantage.  One  good 
effect  at  least  would  have  been  immediately  produced  by  it. 
The  desertion  of  France  would  have  irritated  her  ally,  and 
in  all  probability  have  dissolved  the  family  compact.  The 
scene  is  now  fatally  changed.  The  advantage  is  thrown  away. 
The  most  favourable  opportunity  is  lost.- — Hereafter  we  shall 
know  the  value  of  it.  When  the  French  King  is  reconciled 
to  his  subjects; — when  Spain  has  completed  her  prepara- 
tions;— when  the  collected  strength  of  the  house  of  Bourbon 
attacks  us  at  once,  the  King  himself  will  be  able  to  determine 
upon  the  wisdom  or  imprudence  of  his  present  conduct.  As 
far  as  the  probability  of  argument  extends,  we  may  safely 
pronounce,  that  a  conjuncture,  which  threatens  the  very  be- 
ing of  this  country,  has  been  wilfully  prepared  and  forwarded 
by  our  own  ministry.  How  far  the  people  may  be  animated 
to  resistance  under  the  present  administration,  I  know  not; 
but  this  I  know  with  certainty,  that,  under  the  present  ad- 
ministration, or  if  any  thing  like  it  should  continue,  it  is  of 

•  The  Spanish  commander  of  the  expedition.  Edit. 


JUNIUS.  271 

very  little  moment  whether  we  are  a  conquered  nation  o 
not*. 

Having  travelled  thus  far  in  the  high  road  of  matter  of 
fact,  I  may  now  be  permitted  to  wander  a  little  into  the  field 
of  imagination.  Let  us  banish  from  our  minds  the  persua- 
sion that  these  events  have  really  happened  in  the  reign  of 
the  best  of  princes.  Let  us  consider  them  as  nothing  more 
than  the  materials  of  a  fable,  in  which  we  may  conceive  the 
Sovereign  of  some  other  country  to  be  concerned.  I  mean 
to  violate  all  the  laws  of  probability,  when  I  suppose  that 
this  imaginary  King,  after  having  voluntarily  disgraced  him- 
self in  the  eyes  of  his  subjects,  might  return  to  a  sense  of  his 
dishonour! — that  he  might  perceive  the  snare  laid  for  him 
by  his  ministers,  and  feel  a  spark  of  shame  kindling  in  his 
breast. — The  part  he  must  then  be  obliged  to  act,  would 
overwhelm  him  with  confusion.  To  his  parliament  he  must 
say,  I  called  you  together  to  receive  your  advice,  and  have 
never  asked  your  opinion. — To  the  merchant, — I  have  dis- 
tressed your  commerce;  I  have  dragged  your  seamen  out  of 
your  ships,  I  have  loaded  you  with  a  grievous  weight  of  in- 
surances.— To  the  landholder, —  I  told  you  war  was  too  pro- 
bable, when  I  was  determined  to  submit  to  any  terms  of  ac- 
commodation; I  extorted  new  taxes  from  you  before  it  was 
possible  they  could  be  wanted,  and  am  norv  unable  to  account 
for  the  application  of  them. — To  the  public  creditor, — I  have 
delivered  up  your  fortunes  a  prey  to  foreigners  and  to  the 
vilest  of  your  fellow  subjects.  Perhaps  this  repenting  Prince 

*  The  King's  acceptance  of  the  Spanish  Ambassador's  declaration  is 
drawn  up  in  barbarous  French,  and  signed  by  the  earl  of  Rochford.  This 
diplomatic  lord  has  spent  his  life  in  the  study  and  practice  of  Etiquettes, 
and  is  supposed  to  be  a  profound  master  of  the  ceremonies.  I  will  not  in- 
sult him  by  any  reference  to  grammar  or  common  sense.  If  he  were  even 
acquainted  with  the  common  forms  of  his  office,  I  should  think  him  as 
well  qualified  for  it  as  any  man  in  his  Majesty's  service. — The  reader  is 
requested  to  observe  lord  Rochford's  method  of  authenticating  a  public 
instrument.  **  En  foi  de  quoi,  moi  soussign6,  un  des  principaux  secretaires 
d'etat  de  S.  M.  B.  ai  signe  la  presente  de  ma  signature  ordinaire,  et  icelle 
fait  apposer  le  cachet  denos  armes."  In  tliree  lines  there  are  no  less  than 
seven  false  concords.  But  the  man  does  not  even  know  the  stile  of  his  of- 
fice;— if  he  had  known  it,  he  would  have  said,  "  r.ai:?,  soussigne'  secretaire 
d'etat  de  S.  M.  B.  avons  signe,  &c." 


272  LETTERS  OF 

might  conclude  with/  one  general  acknowledgment  to  them 
all, — I  have  involved  every  rank  of  my  subjects  in  anxiety  and 
distress,  and  have  nothing  to  offer  you  in  return,  but  the  cer- 
tainty of  national  dishonour,  an  armed  truce,  and  peace  -with- 
out security. 

If  these  accounts  were  settled,  there  would  still  remain  an 
apology  to  be  made  to  his  navy  and  to  his  armv.  To  the  first 
he  would  say,  you  -were  once  the  terror  of  the  world.  But  go 
back  to  your  harbours.  A  man  dishonoured,  as  Jam,  has  no 
use  for  your  service.  It  is  not  probable  that  he  would  appear 
again  before  his  soldiers,  even  in  the  pacific  ceremony  of  a 
review*.  But  wherever  he  appeared,  the  humiliating  confes- 
sion would  be  extorted  from  him.  /  have  received  a  blow, — 
and  had  not  spirit  to  resent  it.  I  demanded  satisfaction,  and 
have  accepted  a  declaration,  in  which  the  right  to  strike  me 
again  is  asserted  and  confirmed.  His  countenance  at  least 
would  speak  this  language,  and  even  his  guards  would  blush 
for  him. 

But  to  return  to  our  argument. — The  ministry,  it  seems, 
are  labouring  to  draw  a  line  of  distinction  between  the  ho- 
nour of  the  crown  and  the  rights  of  the  people.  This  new 
idea  has  yet  been  only  started  in  discourse,  for  in  effect  both 
objects  have  been  equally  sacrificed.  I  neither  understand 
the  distinction,  nor  what  use  the  ministry  propose  to  make 
of  it.  The  King's  honour  is  that  of  his  people.  Their  r«al 
honour  and  real  interest  are  the  same. — I  am  not  contending 
for  a  vain  punctilio.  A  clear,  unblemished  character  com- 
prehends not  only  the  integrity  that  will  not  offer,  but  the 
spirit  that  will  not  submit  to  an  injury;  and  whether  it  be- 
longs to  an  individual  or  to  a  community,  it  is  the  founda- 
tion of  peace,  of  independence,  and  of  safety.  Private  credit 
is  wealth; — public  honour  is  security. — The  feather  that 
adorns  the  royal  bird,  supports  its  flight.  Strip  him  of  his 

nlumage  and  vou  fix  him  to  the  earthf . 

JUNIUS. 

*  A  mistake.  He  appears  before  them  eveiy  day,  with  the  mark  of  a 
)lo\v  upon  his  face. — prolt pudor! 
-  It  was  against  this  letter  that  Dr.  Johnson  was  engaged  by  the  minis- 

tn 


JUNIUS.  273 


LETTER  XLIII. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sir,  6th  Feb.  1771. 

I  hope  your  correspondent  Junius  is  better  employed 

than  in  answering  or  reading  the  criticisms  of  a  newspaper. 

This  is  a  task,  from  which,  if  he  were  inclined  to  submit  to 

it,  his  friends  ought  to  relieve  him.  Upon  this  principle,  I 

try  to  muster  the  whole  of  his  political  and  argumentative  powers.  His 
answer,  published  in  1771,  is  entitled,  "Thoughts  on  the  late  Transac- 
tions respecting  Falkland's  Islands:"  from  which  the  following  is  worth 
transcribing: 

"  To  considerations  such  as  these,  it  is  reasonable  to  impute  that  anxie- 
ty of  the  Spaniards,  from  which  the  importance  of  this  island  is  inferred 
by  Junius,  one  of  the  few  writers  of  his  despicable  faction  whose  name 
does  not  disgrace  the  page  of  an  opponent.  The  value  of  the  thing  dis- 
puted may  be  very  different  to  him  that  gains  and  him  that  loses  it.  The 
Spaniards,  by  yielding  Falkland's  Island,  have  admitted  a  precedent  of 
what  they  think  encroachment,  have  suffered  a  breach  to  be  made  in  the 
outworks  of  their  empire,  and,  notwithstanding  the  reserve  of  prior  right, 
have  suffered  a  dangerous  exception  to  the  prescriptive  tenure  of  their 
American  territories." 

"  An  unsuccessful  war  would  undoubtedly  have  had  the  effect  which 
the  enemies  of  the  ministry  so  earnestly  desire;  for  who  could  have  sus- 
tained the  disgrace  of  folly  ending  in  misfortune?  but  had  wanton  inva- 
sion undeservedly  prospered,  had  Falkland's  Island  been  yielded  uncon- 
ditionally with  every  right  prior  and  posterior,  though  the  rabble  might 
have  shouted,  and  the  windows  have  blazed,  yet  those  who  know  the 
value  of  life,  and  the  uncertainty  of  public  credit,  would  have  murmured, 
perhaps  unheard,  at  the  increase  of  our  debt,  and  the  loss  of  our  people. 
"  This  thirst  of  blood,  however  the  visible  promoters  of  sedition  may 
think  it  convenient  to  shrink  from  the  accusation,  is  loudly  avowed  by  Ju- 
nius, the  writer  by  whom  his  party  owes  much  of  its  pride,  and  some  of 
its  popularity:  Of  Junius  it  cannot  be  said,  as  of  Ulysses,  that  he  scatters 
ambiguous  expressions  among  the  vulgar;  for  he  cries  havock  without  re- 
serve, and  endeavours  to  let  slip  the  dogs  of  foreign  and  of  civil  war,  ig- 
norant whither  they  are  going,  and  careless  what  may  be  their  prey.  Ju- 
nius has  sometimes  made  his  satire  felt,  but  let  not  injudicious  admira- 
tion mistake  the  venom  of  the  shaft  for  the  vigour  of  the  bow.  He  has 
sometimes  sported  with  lucky  malice;  but  to  him  that  knows  his  company, 
it  is  not  hard  to  be  sarcastic  in  a  mask.  While  he  walks  like  Jack  the 
Giant  Killer  in  a  coat  of  darkness,  he  may  do  much  mischief  with  little 

strength 

Vol.  I.  2  M 


274  LETTERS  01 

shall  undertake  to  answer  A nti- Junius,  more  I  believe,  to 
his  conviction  than  to  his  satisfaction.  Not  daring  to  attack 
the  main  body  of  Junius's  last  letter,  he  triumphs  in  having, 
as  he  thinks,  surprised  an  out-post,  and  cut  off  a  detached 

strength.  Novelty  captivates  the  superficial  and  thoughtless;  vehemence 
delights  the  discontented  and  turbulent.  He  that  contradicts  acknow- 
ledged truth  will  always  have  an  audience;  he  that  villifies  established 
authority  will  always  find  abettors. 

"Junius  burst  into  notice  with  a  blaze  of  impudence  which  has  rarely 
glared  upon  the  world  before,  and  drew  the  rabble  after  him  as  a  mon- 
ster makes  a  show.  When  he  had  once  provided  for  his  safety  by  impene- 
trable secrecy,  he  had  nothing  to  combat  but  truth  and  justice,  enemies 
whom  he  knows  to  be  feeble  in  the  dark.  Being  then  at  liberty  to  indulge 
;  himself  in  all  the  immunities  of  invisibility;  out  of  the  reach  of  danger,  he 
has  been  bold;  out  of  the  reach  of  shame,  he  has  been  confident.  As  a 
rhetorician,  he  has  the  art  of  persuading  when  he  seconded  desire;  as  a 
reasoner,  he  has  convinced  those  who  had  no  doubt  before;  as  a  moralist, 
he  has  taught  that  virtue  may  disgrace;  and  as  a  patriot,  he  has  gratified 
the  mean  by  insults  on  the  high.  Finding  sedition  ascendant,  he  has  been 
able  to  advance  it;  finding  the  nation  combustible,  he  has  been  able  to  in- 
flame it.  Let  us  abstract  from  his  wit  the  vivacity  of  insolence,  and  with- 
draw from  his  efficacy  the  sympathetic  favour  of  plebeian  malignity;  I  do 
not  say  that  we  shall  leave  him  nothing;  the  cause  that  I  defend  scorns 
the  help  of  falsehood;  but  if  we  leave  him  only  his  merit,  what  will  be 
his  praise? 

"  It  is  not  by  his  liveliness  of  imagery,  his  pungency  of  periods,  or  his 
fertility  of  allusion,  that  he  detains  the  cits  of  London  and  the  boors  of 
Middlesex.  Of  stile  and  sentiment  they  take  no  cognizance.  They  ad- 
mire him  for  virtues  like  their  own,  for  contempt  of  order,  and  violence 
of  outrage,  for  rage  of  defamation  and  audacity  of  falsehood.  The  sup- 
porters of  the  Bill  of  Rights  feel  no  niceties  of  composition,  nor  dexteri- 
ties of  sophistry;  their  faculties  are  better  proportioned  to  the  bawl  of 
Bellas  or  barbarity  of  Beckford;  but  they  are  told  that  Junius  is  on  their 
side,  and  they  are  therefore  sure  that  Junius  is  infallible.  Those  who 
know  not  whither  he  would  lead  them,  resolve  to  follow  him;  and  those 
who  cannot  find  his  meaning,  hope  he  means  rebellion. 

"Junius  is  an  unusual  phenomenon  on  which  some  have  gazed  with 
wonder,  and  some  with  terror,  but  wonder  and  terror  are  transitory  pas- 
sions. He  will  soon  be  more  closely  viewed,  or  more  attentively  examined, 
and  what  foMy  has  taken  for  a  comet  that,  from  its  flaming  hair,  shook 
pestilence  and  war,  enquiry  will  find  to  be  only  a  meteor  formed  by  the 
vapours  of  putrefying  democracy,  and  kindled  into  flame  by  the  effer 
vescence  of  interest  struggling  with  conviction,   which,  after  having 

plunged 


Junius;  275 

argument,  a  mere  straggling  proposition.  But  even  in  this 
petty  warfare,  he  shall  find  himself  defeated. 

Junius  does  not  speak  of  the  Spanish  nation  as  the  natu 

plunged  its  followers  in  a  bog1,  will  leave  us  enquiring1  why  we  regard 
edit. 

"  Yet  though  I  cannot  think  the  stile  of  Junius  secure  from  criticism, 
though  his  expressions  are  often  trite,  and  his  periods  feeble,  I  should 
never  have  stationed  him  where  he  has  placed  himself,  had  I  not  rated 
him  by  his  morals  rather  than  his  faculties.  'What,'  says  Pope,  *  must  be 
the  priest,  where  the  monkey  is  a  god?'  What  must  be  the  drudge  of  a 
party  of  which  the  heads  are  Wilkes  and  Crosby,  Sawbridge  and  Towns- 
hend? 

"Junius  knows  his  own  meaning,  and  can  therefore  tell  it.  He  is  an 
enemy  to  the  ministry,  he  sees  them  hourly  growing  stronger.  He  knows 
that  a  war  at  once  unjust  and  unsuccessful  would  have  certainly  dis- 
placed them,  and  is  therefore,  in  his  zeal  for  his  country,  angry  that  war 
was  not  unjustly  made,  and  unsuccessfully  conducted;  but  there  are  others 
whose  thoughts  are  less  clearly  expressed,  and  whose  schemes  perhaps 
are  less  consequentially  digested,  who  declare  that  they  do  not  wish  for 
rupture,  yet  condemn  the  ministry  for  not  doing  that  from  which  a  rup- 
ture would  naturally  have  followed." 

Of  this  pamphlet  the  ministry  were  not  a  little  proud;  and  especially  as 
they  made  no  doubt  that  Junius  would  hereby  be  drawn  into  a  paper 
contest  with  Johnson,  and  that  hence  they  would  possess  a  greater  facility 
of  detecting  him.  Junius  seems  to  have  been  aware  of  the  trap  laid  for 
him,  and  made  no  direct  reply  whatever.  How  far  the  Doctor  was  correct 
in  asking  the  question,  what  must  be  the  drudge  of  a  party  of  which  the 
heads  are  Wilkes  and  Crosby,  Sawbridge  and  Townshend,  may  be  seen 
by  referring  to  the  protest  entered  on  the  Lord's  journals  against  the  ad- 
dress voted  in  consequence  of  the  communications  made  to  both  houses 
of  parliament  on  the  conclusion  of  the  Spanish  convention,  which  adopts 
most  of  the  sentiments  here  so  ably  expressed,  and  which  will  be  found 
in  a  note  to  Miscellaneous  Letters,  No.  lxxxviii. 

In  effect  the  doctor  did  not  fairly  meet  his  argument;  and  a  reply  was 
not  altogether  necessary. 

With  one  part  of  this  celebrated  pamphlet  the  minister  himself  was  dis- 
pleased, and  actually  suppressed  the  sale  till  his  own  correction  was  sub- 
stituted  for  the  obnoxious  passage.  The  reader  shall  receive  the  account 
from  the  following  letter  inserted  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  which  is  suf- 
ficiently explicit,  and  was  incapable  of  contradiction. 

TO  THE  PRINTER  OF  THE  PUBLIC  ADVERTISER. 

Sin,  April  2,  1771. 

Some  little  time  ago  there  was  published  a  pamphlet,  intitled, 
"Thoughts  on  the  late  Transactions  respecting  Falkland's   Islands," 

said 


276  LETTERS  OF 

ral  enemies  of  England.  He  applies  that  description  with 
the  strictest  truth  and  justice  to  the  Spanish  Court.  From 
the  moment,  when  a  Prince  of  the  House  of  Bourbon  as- 
cended that  throne,  their  whole  system  of  government  was 

said,  upon  good  grounds,  to  have  been  written  by  the  learned  Dr.  John- 
son, under  the  special  direction  of  the  minister-apparent.  Scarce  were  a 
few  copies  got  abroad,  before  the  sale  of  the  edition,  which  had  been  ad 
vertised,  was  stopped,  by  order  of  the  minister,  for  the  sake  of  an  altera- 
tion, which  was  made  (as  there  is  reason  to  believe)  without  the  consent 
of  the  doctor  having  been  asked  or  had;  after  which  it  was  set  agoing 
again,  and  the  public  is  now  happily  once  more  in  possession  of  it.  But  as 
some  may  be  curious  to  know  in  what  it  was  that  the  alteration  particu- 
larly consisted,  and  may  not  have  by  them  both  the  first  published  and 
the  altered  pamphlet  to  compare,  the  following  account  will  solve  the 
question: 

In  the  first  publication,  pages  67  and  68,  you  have  the  following  para- 
graph: 

"  The  Manilla  ransom  has,  I  think,  been  most  mentioned  by  the  inferior 
bellowers  of  sedition.  Those  who  lead  the  faction  know  that  it  cannot  be 
remembered  much  to  their  advantage.  The  followers  of  Lord  Rock- 
ingham remember  that -his  ministry  begun  and  ended  without  obtaining 
it:  the  adherents  to  Grenville  would  be  told  that  he  could  never  be  brought 
to  understand  our  claim.  The  law  of  nations  made  little  of  his  knowledge. 
Let  him  not,  however,  be  depreciated  in  his  grave;  he  had  powers  not 
universally  possessed:  if  he  could  have  got  the  money  he  could  have 
counted  it." 

Upon  calling  in  the  pamphlet,  this  sarcastic  pretty  epigram,  at  the 
•dose  of  the  paragraph,  was  struck  out,  the  two  pages  being  cancelled,  and 
a  carton  substituted,  with  the  following  alteration  after  the  word  "pos- 
sessed:" 

"  And  if  he  sometimes  erred,  he  was  likewise  sometimes  right." 

And  thus  it  now  stands  in  the  second  publication.  And  here  the  exqui- 
site stupidity  of  the  words  which  were  substituted,  to  the  words  expung- 
ed, would  not  be  worth  remarking,  as  if  it  was  veiy  possible  to  name 
that  personage  in  the  world  of  whom  it  was  not  predicable,  that  "if  he 
sometimes  erred,  he  was  also  sometimes  right,"  but  that  there  occurs  upon 
it  a  not  uncurious  question,  to  which  of  the  two  motives  of  the  minister 
this  notable  alteration  was  most  probably  owing;  a  question  which  it  is 
ieft  to  the  candour  of  the  reader  to  decide  with  himself. 

Whether  was  it  owing  to  the  premier's  scrupulous  delicacy  of  not 
wounding  the  memory  of  the  dead  (a  man  who  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
laws,  and  of  the  finances,  infinitely  superior  to  his,  had  however,  if  possi- 
ble, as  little  of  the  genius  for  managing  affairs  as  himself),  that  he  caused 
'he  close  of  the  paragraph  in  the  first  publication  to  be  cancelled,  to  make 


JJJNIUS.  277 

inverted  and  became  hostile  to  this  country.  Unity  of  pos- 
session introduced  a  unity  of  politics,  and  Lewis  the  Four- 
teenth had  reason  when  he  said  to  his  grandson,  "  The  Py~ 
renees  are  removed."  The  History  of  the  present  century  is 
one  continued  confirmation  of  the  prophecy. 

The  assertion  "  That  violence  and  oppression  at  home  can 
only  be  supported  by  treachery  and  submission  abroad"  is 
applied  to  a  free  people,  whose  rights  are  invaded,  not  to  the 
government  of  a  country,  where  despotic,  or  absolute  power 
is  confessedly  vested  in  the  prince;  and  with  this  application, 
the  assertion  is  true.  An  absolute  monarch  having  no  points 
to  carry  at  home,  will  naturally  maintain  the  honour  of  his 
crown  in  all  his  transactions  with  foreign  powers.  But  if  we 
could  suppose  the  Sovereign  of  a  free  nation,  possessed  with 
a  design  to  make  himself  absolute,  he  would  be  inconsistent 
with  himself  if  he  suffered  his  projects  to  be  interrupted  or 
embarrassed  by  a  foreign  war;  unless  that  war  tended,  as  in 
some  cases  it  might,  to  promote  his  principal  design.  Of 
the  three  exceptions  to  this  general  rule  of  conduct,  (quoted 
by  Anti-Junius)  that  of  Oliver  Cromwell  is  the  only  one  in 
point.  Harry  the  eighth,  by  the  submission  of  his  parlia- 
ment, was  as  absolute  a  prince  as  Lewis  the  fourteenth. 
Queen  Elizabeth's  government  was  not  oppressive  to  the 
people;  and  as  to  her  foreign  wars,  it  ought  to  be  considered 
that  they  were  unavoidable.  The  national  honour  was  not  in 
question.  She  was  compelled  to  fight  in  defence  of  her  own 
person  and  of  her  title  to  the  crown.  In  the  common  course  of 
selfish  policy,  Oliver  Cromwell  should  have  cultivated  the 
friendship  of  foreign  powers,  or  at  least  have  avoided  dis- 
putes with  them,  the  better  to  establish  his  tyranny  at  home. 

way  for  foisting  into  the  second  an  alteration  that  mended  nothing,  being 
manifestly  an  exquisite  chip  of  nonsense? 

Or,  was  it  that  those  unlucky  words  in  the  first,  relative  to  the  counting 
of  money ,  struck  the  conscious  premier,  in  the  light  of  the  obvious  danger 
of  the  public's  being  reminded  by  ihem  of  that  rich  story  of  a  high  cha« 
racter's  having,  upon  a  time,  been  observed  busily  employed  in  the  nob?'' 
act  of  counting  money  at  church?  Edit 


278  LETTERS  OF 

Had  he  been  only  a  bad  man,  he  would  have  sacrificed  the 
honour  of  the  nation  to  the  success  of  his  domestic  policy. 
But,  with  all  his  crimes,  he  had  the  spirit  of  an  Englishman. 
The  conduct  of  such  a  man  must  always  be  an  exception  to 
vulgar  rules.  He  had  abilities  sufficient  to  reconcile  contra- 
dictions, and  to  make  a  great  nation  at  the  same  moment 
unhappy  and  formidable.  If  it  were  not  for  the  respect  I 
bear  the  minister,  I  could  name  a  man,  who,  without  one 
grain  of  understanding,  can  do  half  as  much  as  Oliver 
Cromwell. 

Whether  or  no  there  be  a  secret  system  in  the  closet,  and 
what  may  be  the  object  of  it,  are  questions,  which  can  only 
be  determined  by  appearances,  and  on  which  every  man 
must  decide  for  himself. 

The  whole  plan  of  Junius's  letter  proves  that  he  himself 
makes  no  distinction  between  the  real  honour  of  the  crown 
and  the  real  interest  of  the  people.  In  the  climax,  to  which 
your  correspondent  objects,  Junius  adopts  the  language  of 
the  Court,  and  by  that  conformity,  gives  strength  to  his  ar- 
gument. He  says  that,  "  the  King  has  not  only  sacrificed  the 
iyiterests  of  the  people,  bat,  (what  was  likely  to  touch  him 
more  nearly,)  his  personal  reputation  and  the  dignity  of  his 
crown." 

The  queries,  put  by  Anti-Junius,  can  only  be  answered 
by  the  ministry*.  Abandoned  as  they  are,  I  fancy  they  will 
not  confess  that  they  have,  for  so  many  years,  maintained 
possession  of  another  man's  property.  After  admitting  the 
assertion  of  the  ministry — viz.  that  the  Spaniards  had  no 
rightful  claim,  and  after  justifying  them  for  saying  so, — it 
is  his  business  not  mine,  to  give  us  some  good  reason  for 
their  suffering  the  pretensions  of  Spain  to  be  a  subject  of  ne- 
gotiation. He  admits  the  facts; — let  him  reconcile  them  if 
he  can. 

*  A  writer,  subscribing-  himself  Anti-Junius,  attacked  the  preceding 
letter  of  Junius  in  three  successive  numbers  of  the  Public  Advertiser, 
in  February  1771;  but,  after  the  extracts  inserted  from  Dr.  Johnson,  his 

tt<  rs  are  hardly  intitled  to  further  notice.  Edit 


JUNIUS.  279 

The  last  paragraph  brings  us  back  to  the  original  ques- 
tion, whether  the  Spanish  declaration  contains  such  a  satis- 
faction as  the  King  of  Great  Britain  ought  to  have  accepted. 
This  was  the  field,  upon  which  he  ought  to  have  encoun- 
tered Junius  openly  and  fairly.  But  here  he  leaves  the  ar- 
gument, as  no  longer  defensible.  I  shall  therefore  conclude 
with  one  general  admonition  to  my  fellow  subjects; — that, 
when  they  hear  these  matters  debated,  they  should  not  suf- 
fer themselves  to  be  misled  by  general  declamations  upon 
the  conveniences  of  peace,  or  the  miseries  of  war.  Between 
peace  and  war,  abstractedly,  there  is  not,  there  cannot  be  a 
question  in  the  mind  of  a  rational  being.  The  real  questions 
are,  Have  rue  any  security  that  the  peace  xve  have  so  dearly 
purchased  will  last  a  twelve  month?  and  if  not, — have  we  or 
have  we  not,  sacrificed  the  fairest  opportunity  of  making 
war  with  advantage? 

PHILO  JUNIUS*. 

*  On  the  seventh  of  February  appeared  the  following  letter: 

"  TO  THE  PRINTER  OF    THE  PUBLIC   ADVERTISER. 

Sir, 
The  first  letter  of  Atiti-yunius  did  not  promise  a  second,  or  at  least  it 
escaped  me.  I  shall  reserve  my  observations  on  his  second  till  I  see  the 
whole. 

In  the  third  paragraph  of  my  letter  (line  29)  it  should  have  been  print 
ed  common  course,  not  common  cause. 

PHILO  JUNIUS." 
The  error  is  corrected  in  this  edition.  Edit. 


END    OF    THE   FIRST   VOLUME. 


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